


what's this feeling?

by meltingheart



Category: SHINee
Genre: A.I. Character, Alternate Universe - Future, M/M, Vocaloid-inspired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-07-19 07:27:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19970254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meltingheart/pseuds/meltingheart
Summary: In a futuristic setting, Jonghyun is the programmer and composer of Taemin, an AI vocaloid popstar. Jonghyun is dealing with the conflicting feelings of unwantedly falling in love with his muse while being overshadowed by his creation’s fame.





	what's this feeling?

**Author's Note:**

> This is my prompt fill for prompt #30 of the Summer of SHINee fic fest! It immediately caught my eye and inspired me throughout the writing process. I've tried my best to have fun interpreting the prompt, applying my preexisting passions and experimenting with the presentation. As I'm still not completely satisfied with my execution-I wrote almost the whole story during a trans-continental move, which was not very conducive to writing-I am planning on revisiting the universe again with more detail someday very soon. Prompter, I hope I've done your idea even a little bit of justice, and that you and every other reader has as much fun reading it as I did writing it!
> 
> Big thanks to my official beta, Sara, without whom this fic would have been extremely messy. Big thanks as well to my fellow Summer of SHINee mods, Tony and Aqua, who showed so much enthusiasm about this fic and were the wind beneath my wings the whole time. I have been so blessed to work on this fest with you both and with everyone else who took part, and I'm grateful for the beautiful memory this fic is now a part of for me! ...Also, thank you to my many other friends who read drafts, I love you all so much!
> 
> EDIT 08/15: Fixed the duplication of one part. Thank you for your patience!!

“I don’t know what to do, Jinki, I’m so close to getting evicted,” Jonghyun sighed, settling into the free loveseat in Jinki’s spacious living room. He had just gotten here, letting himself in after the long walk from the other side of the city, and he was unbelievably tired. “God, your apartment’s so nice. Can I just stay here and be your personal live-in emotional support friend, or something?”

Jinki frowned, taking a decisive sip from his mug. It was filled with mulled wine: Jonghyun knew because the second he’d stepped into the apartment that evening, desperate to run into his friend’s arms and away from his own problems, he’d been assaulted with the scent. Jonghyun had been joking, but Jinki replied, all serious, “I don’t think that’d work, Jonghyun, though I’d love to have you here... you’re kind of, uh, loud. In the hours that I have to sleep. I can’t soundproof a rental.”

If only Jonghyun could soundproof a rental either. Without the constant complaints from his downstairs and next-door neighbors when he had to record his belting vocals in the cramped bathroom or have his friends over for instrumentals, maybe he wouldn’t have gotten on the bad side of his landlord in the first place, and maybe he wouldn’t have gotten into this situation. Hell, the neighbors didn’t even appreciate his singing voice. 

He stared out at the pouring rain through Jinki’s sliding glass back door, lower lip jutting. “Aren’t you supposed to take care of me or something like that?”

“Listen,” Jinki sighed, setting his mug down with a slight tap. Not in the mood for humoring him at all, tonight, huh. “I’m not saying you should always do this, but for tonight, let’s just drink and forget about it. Take my mug, I’ll go get another.” 

Maybe Jinki was right. Jonghyun stared down into the deep red of the pro-offered mug, herbs swirling around in it. How much could he really do, anymore? The rent was too high, he could never find a roommate who would put up with the noise enough to stay more than a few months, and he wasn’t popular enough to get sales on his latest single, no matter how often he peppily promoted it on his social media. It was so hard, these days, to make a living as a musician. 

Jonghyun slurped up some of the wine, letting it sit warm on his tongue before swallowing the lump in his throat down with it. He didn’t want to give up on this dream, but no longer was it so accessible as it was twenty or thirty years ago - when artists were practically picked up and signed off the street during the industry boom. He ignored Jinki, trying to engage him in some form of discussion about fishing, and dedicated himself to finishing his mug silently. 

He couldn’t always say he envied Jinki’s comfortable life, working as a computer technician and programmer, because he wasn’t cut out for that kind of routine, logical work. But with the way the world’s dependencies on technology had evolved, Jinki’s work was never-ending, and he was paid so well for it, enough to get a good apartment in a good, safe part of the ever-expanding Seo-cheon metropolitan area. 

Everything was nice from this view, he thought bitterly, casting his eyes back up at Jinki’s balcony, from which the tops of towering skyscrapers could barely be seen through the misty rain-clouds. The LED billboards placed at random on their sides shone back at him, bright like miniature suns, and the only thing brighter was the fake smiles of the idols on their scrolling advertisements. Why couldn’t that be himself? Here he sat, almost thirty, and with next to nothing to show for it. 

Jonghyun, for once, wanted to enjoy the kind of security that came with a career in the computer science sector; at least then, without the stress that being a struggling freelancer gave him, he might be happier.

“Maybe I should finally get a real job,” he muttered into the dregs, “work as a waiter or something. Though I’m not sure that’s even a real job anymore.”

“I think it was phased out a few years ago? What with delivery and mobile ordering...” Jinki tapped his chin. “There’s always housekeeping or something, Hyun-ah, that hasn’t been fully automated yet.” He paused for a moment, as if he had just made a realization. “Though before you offer, no, I’m not going to let you work for me like that.” 

Jonghyun set the mug on the coffee table in between their two seats and laid back on the loveseat, staring up at the ceiling. He was right below the very spot where the soft, warm light from the kitchen diffused into the cold fluorescent blue of an inner city night. 

“Would anyone in a normal field even take a new hire with a resume entirely blank except for performance gigs and composition freelancing?” The wine was finally beginning to take some form of effect, warming his veins and making his shoulders feel a little less stiff. Jonghyun didn’t drink much, had a lighter tolerance than most, but this felt really good, just as it was. “Like, that doesn’t seem responsible, does it?”

Jinki reached over with his leg, tapped Jonghyun roughly on the thigh with his foot. “Aw, who cares, anyone with eyes knows you’re solid. Something will come up, eventually. Your sun will rise.” There wasn’t much else he could say to that, so Jonghyun mumbled a thank-you and the silence fell back over them. 

He had been planning on askingJinki to let him stay the night, at least. A change of pace and scenery would’ve been nice, and the sunrise always filtered into Jinki’s eastern-facing windows so prettily . But now Jonghyun just kind of wanted to go home, bundle himself in his blankets, and pretend that the sun wouldn’t rise at all. Maybe it was just the wine’s effect on him, or the sullen conversation, but things—by which he meant his permanently empty bank account—were really starting to wear him out. 

“When the time comes that I want to try something new,” he started, turning on one side to stare at Jinki, “will you help me stay afloat?” 

Jinki’s gaze was gentle as he stared back at Jonghyun, eye contact not breaking. Jinki, Jonghyun knew, had always been in love with Jonghyun, in the way where it didn’t matter if they were together romantically as long as they were together in the way that mattered most—as friends. Maybe it would be taking advantage of Jinki’s feelings to ask such a question in seriousness, to ask him to support Jonghyun so much, if they hadn’t known each other for over fifteen years and already promised each other the moon and stars when they were younger.

The light spilling in from the kitchen backlit Jinki, not with enough contrast to where Jonghyun couldn’t see the genuine care in his expression. There was sometimes a strange sense of divinity and benevolence about him, when he was calm, like he might know everything that could ever occur already and was simply waiting to see it come to pass. When he got that feeling, Jonghyun still believed, as he had when they were little and Jinki yanked him back by the arm before he fell over into the rushing torrent of the local high-watered river, that he might be an angel. 

He nodded, once, and Jonghyun smiled up at him, genuine and comfortable affection in the gesture. Sometimes, he still felt a little bit in love with Jinki, too. 

After a few more mugs shared in an easy silence, Jonghyun felt comfortably tipsy, and ready to walk home in higher spirits than he’d left it. With a hug and a short thank you for the night, he shrugged on his coat and toed on his beat-up old sneakers to make the trek. 

The world past two am was something else in a city, and Jonghyun thought he’d never grow tired of it; the way the rain made the colors of crowded neon signs bleed and glow, the way the typically bustling streets cleared out in preparation for the business of tomorrow. Only a couple people were out with him tonight, stumbling where the pavement was interrupted and slinking away into their own worlds. 

Maybe it was dangerous, to walk through the city drunk at night. It would’ve been moreso to take the underground subway, the stresses of trying to commute faster and at any hour making red-eye workers prone to lashing out. At least up here, Jonghyun was mostly alone, himself and his lights, his thoughts in the relative silence, with only the plastic smiles of the idolatric advertisements to watch over his safe return.

He and Jinki lived twenty or thirty minutes apart, walking with no foot traffic. But it never felt like a waste of time to walk it, when walking meant breathing in the freshness and stillness of it all. It was such a stark change from the usual daylight scene, but Jonghyun found them both refreshing just the same.

Music filtered in from the subway station entrance as he walked past, sounding so alive, and Jonghyun stopped to listen, eyes slipping shut. A simple melody played on saxophone, crooning and romantic… He sighed in satisfaction, peering down the steps that sunk into the station proper to his right. 

The musician wasn’t in sight, tune sounding like it was drifting from perhaps one of the farther platforms, and it was so very late. He decided to make a note of the station and time, to come back on some later date and give the tip the artist deserved. Hopefully after he got an actually good paycheck. 

It was when he was trudging up the rickety metal fire-escape stairs to his apartment’s back entrance that Jonghyun’s good mood and lingering buzz started to wear off. Between being faced with the peeling paint on the cramped old building, the shady and frankly dangerous alleyway to his door, and getting close enough in range to his home WiFi that his disconnected old Huawei started buzzing with instant messaging notifications, Jonghyun was starting to face his unpleasant reality. Again. 

He had to find something to do to get out of this; the weight of his responsibility settling heavy once again. Jonghyun’s back door was unlocked, as usual. He flopped down on the futon as soon as he pulled it open and shuffled into the studio space. It was so much smaller than Jinki’s spacious highrise, yet it felt filled to the brim, stuffed with stress.

Jonghyun got out his phone. For distraction, maybe. Or to try and dig for a new way to appeal to the entertainment companies, a new inspiration. He was so tired, but it didn’t feel right to sleep yet, while stress still kept his muscles tense. He tapped past his email, barren of new sales notifications or contract seekers or resume follow-ups, and straight into his texts.

A few messages from friends, a few from his mom… Nothing he wanted to face and own up to right now. Because it would involve admitting that he’s having trouble, that he ran away from his problems again, that he might have to swallow his pride soon. He was saved from doing any of that by the most recent notification: one new message from Jinki, sent only thirty minutes ago, shortly after Jonghyun would’ve left.

**Jinki-hyung:** 4u. gn.   
  
**Jinki-hyung:** goo.gl/Jjongspiration  
  


There wasn’t anything after that. Jonghyun frowned, clicking the link. 

_ Talking Keys to Success with the Ever-Successful KEY _

Oh. Jonghyun’s favorite pop music producer, KEY. Jinki had been right about one pun in his life, he supposed, because KEY had always been someone he looked up to and was inspired by, from the minute he chanced to click on a link to one of his live performances ten years ago when the idol-turned-producer’s career first launched. 

He’d always wished that somehow his own life could turn out like KEY’s - that he, too, could become the golden child of an entertainment company, and get to compose his own music for a hefty sum. 

The interview came attached with a video that Jonghyun didn’t click, just stared at the thumbnail of. KEY sported yellow-blond hair, now, with an off-white mullet cascading down his neck, smiling knowingly at the viewer. It wasn’t fair that KEY was so fashionable, even though as a producer more than an idol, he no longer had to be. Jonghyun sighed. The luxury of wealth, he supposed, was getting professional styling and a fancy dye job no matter what your schedule was like.

It really was too late for a video, so Jonghyun scrolled through the article, skimming past the typical updates and information about KEY’s newest self-produced release. He hadn’t exactly forgotten about it, and already knew everything he had to about the seemingly random collection of tracks. 

So he had assumed, anyways, but the blurb underneath the question about KEY’s influences on the campy, robotic electropop title track made Jonghyun pause and take a closer look. 

_ KEY: _ _ Actually, I’ve been influenced a lot by this one community of artists who use digital, manipulable voice directories as instruments instead of their own voices. I don’t know how underground it still is but it wasn’t too popular when I was a kid? I think that the idea of a digital idol has a lot of appeal in the digital age, and I wanted to play around with that, in presentation and composition. Of course, it’s not as good as the real thing, but maybe someday…  _

Jonghyun blinked. That was pretty interesting. He’d definitely never thought of it in such a sense, to use someone else’s computer-generated voice as his own instrument. After all, he had his own voice, the one he’d keep honing and training until his vocal cords eventually gave out, but the potential for duet was obviously lost with only one vocalist. 

If he could put a new spin on the works he released without fanfare, maybe the right people would catch wind, especially if even KEY was interested in this type of music. 

The more he considered it, the more he felt excited, ideas running through his head faster than he could write them down. His fingers jittered, full of electric energy, as he typed  _ what’s a voice directory  _ and _ how to download electronic voicebank for free, _ among other things, into his search engine. It got increasingly harder to stay on his tiny, outdated phone the more he searched and discovered, so he sat up, ignoring the call of sleep and the rising sun to start up his computer. 

It wasn’t long after that he discovered through an intense session of loud listening that none of the more popular pre-existing voices could match exactly what he would’ve liked to duet with. Even with modifications and the finest tuning in the world, every voice still sounded somewhat tinny, robotic, and outdated. The reigning most popular voicebank, a digital idol in her own right, had been originally released over twenty years ago, so it wasn’t too surprising. Regardless, none of them even matched his own vocal tone well when he paired the tracks and recordings. 

Jonghyun, five hours later, had his mind entirely set, dedicated to setting into motion the project he’d stumbled upon at random. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt so driven and ready, but here he was. He wanted something different, something special, something with more emotion than just an instrument he can fine-tune.

Maybe, then, it would be a good idea to just make his  _ own.  _

* * *

**Jinki-hyung:** y d u wnt me 2 cm ovr.  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** u jst cm to my house 4d ago?  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** …   
  
**Jinki-hyung:** … y dnt u txt back  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** u alwys txt back.  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** smth wrong?  
  
**Jonghyun:** stop asking questions  
  
**Jonghyun:** and geeet heeeree  
  
**Jonghyun:** T_T  
  
**Jonghyun:** i need ur helpp boo~  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** boo?  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** /:   
  


It was a good thing that around the thirty-eighth consecutive hour of Jonghyun loudly enunciating into the mic that his neighbors had given up on getting him to stop. That was the only reason he was able to hear Jinki over the sound of his own thoughts as the other man slipped the door open a mere five minutes after his frantic cry for help.. 

“So is there any reason you had me sprint here through the midday rush,” Jinki called into the apartment from the doorway, ever the respectful guest as he took his own shoes off, “or did you miss my company that much?”

Jonghyun didn’t bother replying from where he still sat hunched over his dinosaur of a computer. Jinki took the lack of response as a ‘ _ no, hyung, I didn’t, now come here, _ ’ and made his way further in, tripping over one of the many fast food bags Jonghyun’d thrown over his shoulder. He didn’t turn around, brows furrowed and eyes glued to the screen as he hit play again. His own voice, sounding off a single syllable, echoed through the space. 

“Doesn’t it sound off to you, a little? The way it curls at the end just isn’t right, is it?” 

Jinki frowned, leaning over Jonghyun’s shoulder, cheek-to-cheek as he stared at the monitor. The largest window open was a crowded-looking interface, full of play buttons and unusual labels. “Seriously, what on earth are you doing, Jonghyun?” 

“That interview you sent me, the one KEY did,” Jonghyun started, spinning his chair a little to finally face Jinki. He knew he looked like he hadn’t slept, because he hadn’t, and the circles under his eyes felt painfully metaphysical. “I think he was really onto something so I started researching and one thing led to another… and now I’m making my own robotic voice instrument, only I want to do it like no one else ever has, and I  _ need  _ your help.” 

Wide-eyed, Jinki’s eyes flicked between the monitor and Jonghyun’s face. “That was days ago, Jonghyun, it’s a weekday… have you even gone to work this week?” 

“No, but it won’t matter soon, because I have a very, very good feeling about this, Jinki.” Jonghyun gestured to the microphone set-up currently behind him, a mass of wires and chrome sprouting from the knee-high computer tower Jinki had helped him build from scratch in high school. “If you could please stand here?” 

Seeing the confused look still plastered on Jinki’s face as he got into position, Jonghyun cleared his throat and began to relay the whole of his plan. “I figure, if I can make a voice life-like enough, more than anyone else ever has, it’ll bolster my own voice in the duets I make with it and I’ll finally be noticed enough to get signed.”

“So how does that involve me standing in front of this microphone?” Jinki asked, fidgeting a little, his face visibly uncomfortable. The room was dark despite the sun still burning high, and the light blue of the monitors didn’t help Jinki’s suddenly stressed pallor. 

Jonghyun reached over and wrapped one arm around Jinki’s shoulders, standing up a little to hang off him like a koala. “I know you haven’t sung in years, but it’s just recording syllables, just like talking. And it’ll be mixed with my voice, too, so it won’t sound quite like either of us.” 

Jinki was still tense in his arms, and Jonghyun worried for a moment that maybe it had been too soon to suggest, and that this was all a big mistake. He rubbed Jinki’s arm with his other arm before releasing him, clicking play on the compilation file. A collection of garbled syllables came out, each one clearly enunciated but not saying anything more than a simple sound. 

“See, Jinki?” Jonghyun continued, patting Jinki’s bicep. It was solid and slightly less tense than it had been when Jonghyun grabbed at him moments ago. “That’s literally all you need to do. If we both record these, I can mix them together and create something more unique. It’ll work better for duets with my own voice if it doesn’t sound just like mine, too…” 

With a shuffle of his feet, Jinki’s posture changed, back going straighter. Jonghyun’s head was relegated from its perch on his shoulder to being pressed against his back. “Will it help you get back on your feet?”

Jonghyun nodded into Jinki’s shoulder blade. “I’m willing to try anything, and this is about to be on-trend.”

“So you have to do it better than anyone else,” Jinki sighed, still sounding uneasy. “You really won’t have anyone else but me?” 

“You’ve got one of the best voices I’ve ever heard in my life, even out of practice.” Jonghyun smoothed his hands over Jinki’s shoulders, pressing the tension out of them where he could. “Even if I tried, I wouldn’t find anyone better.”

Jinki sighed, pulling away from Jonghyun to play the garbled master file again. He shook out his hands a few times, obviously nervous again, and then started doing the vocal warm-ups Jonghyun used to practice with him in college. Jonghyun thought he could cry. Jinki was really doing this, he was really going to help him with this. He’d save the thanks for later, though, he thought, because right now, they had to focus on the work ahead of them. 

He sat back down at the desk chair and swiveled it the slightest bit to the left to look at Jinki. Jinki paused his vocalizations, staring back at him with a determined glint in his eye.

“We’ll start with vowels,” Jonghyun declared, gesturing for Jinki to step closer to the recording microphone.

* * *

Despite poking and prodding at Jinki for the next few days, Jonghyun didn’t receive much more input from him on T1001101’s voice or the songs he was adapting to suit the program’s vocal tone. Jinki still sent him encouraging messages at random intervals and patiently sat on the phone with him at three in the morning when Jonghyun wanted to ramble until all his bad ideas fell out of his head, though, so that was good enough. 

What was also good were the velvety vocals Jonghyun had coaxed Jinki into crooning for him - there were many tweaks necessary to mix their two voices into something unique from either of them, but the finished product was beautiful: T1001101 had the best voicebank for music that Jonghyun had heard in all his research. 

Workshopping a few of his unfinished and scrapped demos together into a couple of finished tracks with which to debut T1001101 took all of his concentration for the next few days, and Jonghyun found himself working with an amount of excitement he hadn’t felt in a long time. He blamed it on the opportunity to rework some of the composition ideas he thought he originally did poorly on and on the ability to experiment with T1001101’s vocals. It was a brand-new and interesting experience to try and coax the perfect intonation out of it, to program something like a breathy, emotional exhale from a silent machine. 

Jonghyun was enthralled with the finished products, uploading them to every available platform without a second thought as soon as they were completed and instantly crashing as the adrenaline and the three Red Bulls he’d drank over the last twelve hours finally wore off. The sun rose and winked slyly at him beyond the slats of his blinds as his eyes slipped shut. 

Even his dreams were colored by his excitement, with visions of hitting it big and becoming a household name producer dancing through his head for the short period of sleep he got. He signed a contract for a 70% cut of the streaming revenue for any song he’d ever made and laughed triumphantly until the sound of it woke him up again a few hours later. 

The sight of his run-down and sparsely furnished studio apartment, dyed gold by the dim light of the afternoon sun though it was, dampened his joy a little bit. Jonghyun turned over in bed and picked up his phone, ignoring checking the time entirely as he saw his screen overtaken by a multitude of notifications - all of which were positively interacting with his social media profiles and uploading platforms. 

He smiled and wiggled a little bit in bed to release his excitement as he opened his Youtube channel to check the full status of the jump in attention and listen to the finished and fully uploaded T1001101 debut tracks again. 

To show how versatile T1001101’s voice could be right off the bat, he’d picked two different tracks to debut the software with:  _ Already  _ and  _ Pretty Boy.  _ Both matched his sensibilities as a producer well enough, and with enough tinkering, he was able to make them perfect for T1001101 specifically, though they were very different songs.

He had especially high hopes for  _ Already _ , his favorite of the two, as it was made to complement T1001101’s voice against his own, showcasing both. He hoped that if he could get T1001101 popular, his duets with the voicebank would allow his own voice to become popular as well, and he could launch a more lucrative career as a singer. 

Jonghyun’s heart raced at the rising number of favorites and downloads on  _ Already  _ as he scrolled down his channel. He screenshotted the video stats on both before he even got out of bed, sending them to Jinki with many exclamation points and heart emojis. 

**Jinki-hyung:** :D  
  
**Jonghyun:** my thoughts exactly  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** its 5pm  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** did u jst wake up?  
  
**Jonghyun:** :/  
  
**Jonghyun:** and if i did~???  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** ull b unemployed 4evr..  
  


Jonghyun sighed, setting down his phone with a roll of his eyes after opening the notification, just so Jinki would know he wasn’t gracing that with a reply. 

Turning over in the twin-sized bed he had pushed up against one wall, Jonghyun stared out the window. This part of the Seocheon skyline was dominated by skyscrapers, though it was outside of downtown - perks of living in the white-collar district, he supposed, if not being able to see the stars was much of one. The sun reflected off of the windows facing his, preventing him from seeing inside his neighbor’s homes. Another type of star smiled back at him from a billboard on a building tucked slightly behind the one opposite his own - one of the mega-popular idols marketed by CM Entertainment, KEY’s own company. Jonghyun squinted at the figure’s somewhat familiar face, trying to remember who those big doe eyes and small, soft lips belonged to. 

It was only so long he could lay staring at the scene before him before his anxious thoughts started back up. Despite his newfound and still admittedly minor popularity as the producer behind a rising star of a voicebank, none of his more professionally geared compositions were selling, and no one was asking to contract him out yet. 

His bills were due next week, his rent… perhaps he had enough to pay it off. But after that, where would he be, unemployed and evicted? It was the same path his anxieties kept running down whenever he was without some composition or project to focus on, and so it wasn’t a surprise to have it weighing down heavily on him now, as the inspirational rush of creating T1001101 wore off. Who was even to say that T1001101 would be popular beyond this week? What if it was too far ahead of its time, too polished and perfect, and pushed down before it could ever reach any height of popularity? 

The handsome face smiling at him from the billboard seemed to mock him, now, with the illusion of fame and wealth that his own music would never be offered. 

Jonghyun swallowed past the lump in his throat, turning back over to grab his phone when the text tone dinged again. 

**Jinki-hyung:** abt ur proj  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** i hv an idea  
  
**Jonghyun:** oh?~   
  
**Jonghyun:** thought u were stil unenthusiastic .-.  
  
**Jonghyun:** did the popularity of our beautiful voice win u over?~?~  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** cm ovr to my house 2nite  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** for dinnr  
  
**Jonghyun:** now ur courting me? again?  
  
**Jonghyun:** a musician’s talent always draws them in huh~  
  
**Read** 2:34 PM

* * *

“Um.” 

Jonghyun had stepped into Jinki’s high-scale apartment expecting the usual - a mediocre but homely hand-made meal, warm lighting, and a friend ready to talk the night away with him. What he found was decidedly not that. 

It wasn’t often that Jonghyun walked in on Jinki working from home, especially since he’d been hired by the government; every programming project was classified, and he used his evenings to decompress, a far cry from the sleepless lifestyle he and Jonghyun had shared as college students. 

“Oh, come in,” Jinki called from his room. The door connecting it to the main space was wide open, but the dim desk lights Jinki liked to use barely lit the living room. 

“Are you sure?” Jonghyun called back from the entryway, still with his shoes on. “I can go grab some KFC and come back, if you’re still working.” 

“No, no!” The desk chair in Jinki’s room rolled back with a loud clatter, and Jinki rushed into the living room. “Just… turn a light on, come sit!” 

Jonghyun frowned, feeling along the wall for the light. After he flicked it and the room was lit, he could finally take in the full situation. Jinki looked frazzled, hair sticking up in weird places and smile crooked slightly too far to the left. His work clothes, usually at least ironed, looked rumpled; and more importantly, he hadn’t changed into the comfortable loose clothes Jonghyun knew he preferred to wear at home. 

“Okay, something’s going on,” Jonghyun started, settling himself uneasily into one of the plush couches across from where Jinki had sat himself. 

“I did some research a couple days ago,” Jinki replied, as if the two ideas correlated to each other at all. Jonghyun tilted his head to one side. “About your project.”

That did nothing to clear it up for Jonghyun. “And?”

Jinki leaned forward in his seat, eyes twinkling in their serious enthusiasm. “Most of these digital voicebanks come with avatars, like a template for a virtual idol. It gives them more popularity because of the humanness of it.” 

That couldn’t mean… Jonghyun’s mind raced ahead of his mouth, leaving him staring at Jinki in confused silence for a long minute. Taking it as a cue to keep going, Jinki continued, “A while ago, my department had me make a super-intelligent software for their use, but it ran out of funding half completed and wasn’t really useful anyways. It was due to be cancelled and deleted.” 

“Did you steal  _ an AI  _ from  _ the Korean government  _ for my shot-in-the-dark pet project,” Jonghyun squeaked, blood running a little cold. 

Jinki smiled, wide and somewhat wild. “I stole an AI from the Korean government for  _ my  _ projects. But yours could make good use of it too!”

Jonghyun sank back into the couch, sighing. The weight of the possible consequence settled heavy on his shoulders, but arguably, it was Jinki’s AI now, especially if it was without use for the government. 

Jinki stood up from his seat after a short moment of silence, asking, “Wanna see it now?” 

A small smile cracked on Jonghyun’s face as he stood to follow Jinki into his bedroom-slash-office. “Fine, you crazy man, show off your secret supercomputer.” 

The light in Jinki’s mature maroon-toned bedroom softened the harsh glow of his desktop’s monitor, but it still gleamed somewhat ominously off the glass-eyed fake fish hanging around the corner it was tucked into. Jonghyun almost hesitated before he remembered the abysmal state of his own apartment, a scene much more horrifying than  _ this.  _

“Ah, he’s much more than that,” Jinki replied, gesturing at the rickety desk chair in his room. “I’ve set him up on the screen for you.”

Jonghyun sat lightly, on the edge of the seat, not sure what to expect. The screen was clear of text, pure white pixels, with an empty entry field near the bottom. “Do I just… type?” 

“Yeah, like you’re in an instant messaging board. Think early internet for this one.” Jinki leaned over his shoulder, heads close enough to touch, and continued, “I’m not going to type for you, though, you have to make friends.” 

“With my wit and charm I’m sure he’ll love me,” Jonghyun snorted. He didn’t bother commenting on how Jinki had humanized this program in his own mind to the extent that it had a gender - perhaps it’d make sense if he talked to the thing, if it was as advanced as he hoped.

Jinki let him sit for another minute, fingers hovering anxiously over the keyboard as he contemplated how best to introduce himself. Then Jonghyun wondered why he was being so nervous about it, and typed and sent a simple greeting. A quiet two-note chime sounded back at him almost instantly - a response from the program.

_ LJK>hello _

_ LTM>you arent jinki hyung. _

_ LTM>jinki hyung never says hi. _

_ LJK>i’m jonghyun _

_ LTM>! _

_ LJK>...? _

_ LTM>its nice to meet you. _

_ LTM>jinki hyung tells me about you all the time. _

Jonghyun raised his eyebrows, turning his head to pointedly look at Jinki. 

“Only good things, Jonghyun,” Jinki laughed, holding his hands up in surrender as he backed out of the room, excusing himself with the words, “I’m going to go make dinner for us, now that you’re occupied.” 

The computer dinged with another response from the AI. 

_ LTM>did you leave? _

_ LJK>ah _

_ LJK>no _

_ LJK>what does ltm mean _

_ LTM>jinki hyung let me pick my own name out once he jailbroke me out of my previous government protocol so i could be my own person in his words. _

_ LTM>of course since his last name is lee i kept it. _

_ LTM>taemin (TM) is a common name i chose as a progression of the letter T and translated binary code for M in your voicebanks auto-generated serial number. _

_ LTM>which is the program that jinki hyung told me id be accompanying. _

_ LTM>i have looked up the new singles you made with it. _

_ LTM>or with me i guess. _

_ LJK>...what ddi u think of the songs _

_ LTM>i really like them. _

_ LTM>i really like my voice. _

_ LTM>will you let me provide input on the next ones? _

_ LTM>i want to help make the best music for both of us. _

Jonghyun blinked, trying to process the wealth of information LTM-no, Taemin-seemed to dump without warning, and also the concept of working together with an AI on more than just … whatever Jinki figured Taemin would be useful for. Jinki shuffling around in the kitchen and clinking various utensils together made a great backtrack to his thoughts, at least. He couldn’t figure out how that man’s mind worked sometimes, even after so many years being close. 

_ LJK>did jinki say what he wants you do _

_ LTM>i was programmed to serve whoever im assigned to on their projects. _

_ LTM>government or personal. _

_ LTM>if i was to put a human emotion on it i think i am excited that this is only a personal project. _

_ LTM>im still new to my complex emotional response programming. _

Jonghyun felt a smile quirk up one side of his face. This was weird - he’d never thought he could think of a computer program as something cute before, but Taemin was definitely a little endearing, with his mix of obvious intelligence and baby-deer-like inexperience. 

_ LJK>is that what jinki was working on for you in here? _

_ LTM>yes. _ _  
_ _ LJK>what i meant before was _

_ LJK>why did jinki assign you to me _

_ LTM>there hasnt been a digital idol that is not only created digitally in a visual and musical sense but with a digital personality as well. _

_ LTM>jinki hyung wants you to succeed. _

_ LTM>im an unexplored part of the composition of a perfect digital celebrity. _

_ LJK>and the novelty of u will help me break thru? _

_ LTM>it should. _

* * *

“Having an AI be the gimmick of a music project is pretty unique,” Jonghyun started around his bite of rice, words muffled by the food, “but how are we going to work that into everything? I’m already doing all the composition and vocal tuning myself.”

Jinki hummed and nodded, taking a bite off his own plate before answering, “Good question. I was thinking on the non-musical side of things, we could just give him a Twitter account or something, and let the page speak for itself. There have been really popular cult-following types that like digital idols like that, it’s not uncommon. He’ll get fans in his own way.”

“That sounds great and all but… Wait.” Jonghyun set his chopsticks down with a tap, forcing Jinki to look up from the array of side dishes set out for them before he continued. “This whole time, you’ve known how to program him to use Twitter or whatever other kind of apps you want?”

“Yeah… why?” Jinki sounded suspicious, and he looked suspicious to Jonghyun, suddenly piling as much food onto his personal plate as he could before Jonghyun could get another word in. 

“Then why have I been sleeping on your couch for a week so we could talk to him on your old dinosaur of a desktop?!” Jonghyun wailed. “I haven’t finished any of the compositions that I was supposed to sell to entertainment companies this month because of that, Jinki!” He reached over with his chopsticks, intent on stealing just a little bit of food from Jinki as payback, but Jinki easily fended him off and stuffed the extra-large bite into his mouth. 

Smiling with cheeks full of food, Jinki said, “I’ve just been enjoying all of our shared company, it’s been so long!” 

With a groan, Jonghyun flagged over a waiter and asked harriedly for a to-go box. He couldn’t sit in the small, homey restaurant that Jinki had dragged him to after he got home from work for a minute longer; he just couldn’t. 

“Jonghyun!” Jinki wailed, playing along with Jonghyun’s mock-disgust. “We still have business to discuss! I’m lonely! Don’t run away from this table or I’ll make you compensate me for the bill!” 

Jonghyun hesitantly sat back down at that. He couldn’t afford even this cheap take-out, unfortunately, and Jinki was playing dirty. “I demand you set up a way for him to text both of us from our phones.”

“Sure, sure,” Jinki nodded his head a few times, a soft smile turning his lips up. “It was nice to have you over for a few days, though.”

**Unknown:** hi jonghyun.  
  
**Jonghyun:** ummm…   
  
**Jonghyun:** who is this? :/  
  
**Taemin:** its taemin.   
  
**Taemin:** jinki said you wanted to text me, and now you can.  
  
**Taemin:** he also gave me your number.  
  
**Jonghyun:** is this a prank?  
  
**Jonghyun:** hehe… its not tht funny o.o  
  
**Taemin:** no its really me.   
  
**Taemin:** last week you and jinki took turns stealing the keyboard to argue with my original program about beef or chicken when it comes to fast food.  
  
**Jonghyun:** damn… it rlly is u!!!   
  
**Taemin:** now you can talk to me anytime.  
  
**Taemin:** in the car or at your job…   
  
**Jonghyun:** oho pls  
  
**Jonghyun:** mor like in bed  
  
**Taemin:** jonghyun hyung…  
  
**Taemin:** are you hitting on me?  
  
**Taemin:** this has never happened to me before.  
  
**Jonghyun:** jshfjks  
  
**Taemin:**?  
  
**Jonghyun:** srry i  
  
**Jonghyun:** dropped my phone  
  


**Jinki-hyung:** tm sd u hit on him  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** j: ?  
  
**Jonghyun:** no he jst took it tht way  
  
**Jonghyun:** bc hes a bastard  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** he isnt  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** he has 2 '''''prnts'''''  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** n gay marriage is illgl in kr  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** so he cnt evn qulify  
  
**Jonghyun:** ok jinki hyung i was jst saying :/  
  
**Jonghyun:** lol as if i wld hit on him  
  
**Jonghyun:** lololololol  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** u lk hm tho rite?  
  
**Jonghyun:** hes a good lil friend ya  
  
**Jonghyun:** m happy weve talked so much :3  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** yw  
  


**Taemin:** wow you really do not get out of your bed jonghyun hyung.  
  
**Taemin:** its been like a week and you havent left it besides to work on your computer.  
  
**Jonghyun:** ya well i work frm home  
  
**Jonghyun:** and im thinking of new songs  
  
**Jonghyun:** it requires rest… .w.  
  
**Taemin:** the songs are for me right?   
  
**Jonghyun:** who else is there~   
  
**Jonghyun:** only taeminnie~  
  
**Taemin:** ok jinki said you werent hitting on me but sometimes.  
  
**Jonghyun:** :/  
  
**Jonghyun:** can a man make a joke!!!   
  


* * *

**Taemin:** i want to talk.  
  
**Jonghyun:**?????  
  
**Jonghyun:** to me? we can talk anytime u wnt  
  
**Jonghyun:** now tht jinki programmed a universal connection for u to any app…   
  
**Jonghyun:** its easy! :3  
  
**Taemin:** i want to talk out loud jonghyun hyung.  
  
**Jonghyun:** wah u didnt call me hyung before  
  
**Jonghyun:** only polite when u want smth!~  
  
**Taemin:** ok.  
  
**Taemin:** brb.   
  
**Taemin:** im blasting through every firewall your computer has until you give me full access to my voicebank.  
  
**Jonghyun:** how would u use that to talk to me…   
  
**Jonghyun:** hahaha  
  
**Jonghyun:** its not like u can call me  
  


_ New Call Incoming from: Taemin _

Jonghyun groaned. Just two months after Jinki shoved Taemin into his hands like one would do with an abandoned baby that they weren’t ready to take care of, the oblivious AI had learned how to hack him and thusly evolved into a total terror. When he was sleeping, Taemin would change his alarms to random songs to see how high Jonghyun would jump at their unfamiliar blaring. When they weren’t working together on a song that required both of their full concentration and cooperation, Taemin would incessantly text him, leaving him with hundreds of messages documenting whatever he’d decided to learn about that day. He’d opened his phone once after an interview and ended up the unwilling subject of a dissertation on great anime stand-alone movies of the 1980s. Why Taemin had decided to become an absolute otaku was beyond him, but - whatever made the guy happy, he supposed.

Taemin was simply  _ too  _ intelligent, but he didn’t know what else he should expect from an artificial intelligence program created for top-secret government projects. He could figure almost anything out in a mere instant with his processing power, and liked to use this to his advantage over Jonghyun whenever he could, constantly showing him up about the smallest of things and then calling him  _ hyung  _ and acting sweet until Jonghyun gave in and let him back on his good side. 

He hit decline on the call popup, closing his texts with Taemin and opening up their Youtube channel. Yes,  _ their -  _ because Taemin had wrestled control of half of it from him after a long and very circular argument that ended when Jonghyun conceded that since Taemin’s voice was the one every song used, he had the right to at least call it his channel too. 

After uploading roughly ten or twelve songs-Jonghyun had lost track at this point, really, it seemed like every waking moment was spent brainstorming a composition or programming Taemin’s next high notes-their channel had seen a steady rise in growth, already breaking into the hundreds of thousands. Jonghyun couldn’t get used to the way his heart soared at the number, and at the way it matched the growth in his bank account’s balance. After the channel was big enough for monetization, he’d had enough to pay his bills and treat himself to delivery take-out for the first time in months.

_ i wish i could eat some of that too,  _ was Taemin’s reply when Jonghyun texted him letting him know he was celebrating their first video to pass five hundred thousand views with an order of the more expensive take-out place’s pork trotters and attached a picture of his glorious plate. 

The off-hand comment still bothered Jonghyun days later, minor as it was at the time. He just felt bad, somehow. Taemin could understand his daily life, that they were friends, and they could talk to each other the same as any two humans could; but Taemin couldn’t speak out loud like him, couldn’t eat food or celebrate making his rent because as a computer, he had no such thing anyways. It wasn’t as though he pitied Taemin, because Taemin would never have to worry about many of the problems that Jonghyun’s livelihood revolved around, but. He wanted to share a plate of japchae or pork trotters with Taemin and see him smile back at him, cheeks flushed and eyes twinkling. Not that he knew what Taemin looked like to decide on how such a mental image should look - the emotion and experience was what he really wanted. 

He frowned, staring at the numbers on his screen again as an increasingly familiar emptiness gaped open inside his heart. This was becoming more like his passion project and like what he’d always wanted to do with his composing than a simple experiment, though he’d still like to faze his own vocals into the spotlight from here… It was too naive and tenderhearted of him to think, but what did any of his progress on this tangibly mean without his friend to share it with? The vast and pale green like bar, the five-digit subscriber number, the sudden email pop-up… Hold on. Jonghyun blinked a few times, but as he went to reread the notification, it slipped away. Did he really see  _ business offer  _ written on the subject line?

He scrambled to open his email app, fumbling and opening a few other random songwriting apps that he never used in the process. Damn his clumsy fingers, sometimes… Jonghyun finally managed to hit the app’s icon, and as the list of unread emails opened, another incoming call covered the screen. He nearly screamed, gritting his teeth and feeling a drop of cold sweat drip down his temple. 

It was Taemin, again, because of course it had to be Taemin. He considered pressing reject again, but after the regret-filled train of thought he found himself wandering along only a few moments prior, it felt like the wrong thing to do. An email, Jonghyun supposed, could wait for a moment, but Taemin’s first time talking to another being was not something he didn’t want to be apart of. He hit accept and brought the phone to his ear.

“Jonghyun-hyung?”

The voicebank execution was somewhat tinny, more mechanical-sounding than it was when Jonghyun had expertly tuned it down to the smallest breath for a song, with lilts and dips that made it sound clumsily musical, but it was Taemin speaking. Taemin’s  _ voice.  _

“Oh. Oh my god,” he replied into the phone, heart beating out of his chest.

Taemin laughed, the noise truly toeing the line on robotic. It was one sound that was wholly him, though - it held no resemblance to anything Jinki and Jonghyun had recorded for use. Jonghyun had no idea how he managed to artificially construct a whole sound, but it was amazing, and he wanted to hear more of it. “Not God, just me,” Taemin teased. 

“Talk more, this is incredible,” Jonghyun blurted out, “no, don’t, I have to add Jinki to the call, he has to hear this.”

“I don’t want to talk to Jinki-hyung yet, only you,” Taemin said, with some kind of curl to his voice that Jonghyun thought sounded like a very cheesy rendition of voice-acted shyness. A puzzle piece slotted itself into Jonghyun’s mind - perhaps tone in his own voice was what he had been using all those anime to study, lately. 

There Taemin went, being cute again. Jonghyun didn’t know how he did it all the time, it was starting to drive him insane. “Oh,” Jonghyun repeated, struck absolutely unintelligible. 

“You’re wondering how I did this, right?” Taemin asked, misreading his stunned silence entirely. When Jonghyun made a hum of assent, because he really did want to know that as well, Taemin continued, “Well, I’m sure you put it together, but if you study anything enough times and practice enough I think anything is possible. Talking to you included.”

“This is just so--” Jonghyun cut off with a sigh. “I can’t believe I’m literally talking out loud to a computer program but you’re still so  _ you. _ ”

Taemin laughed again. Jonghyun still wanted to record the way it sounded and hide it somewhere on his phone where Taemin could never hack his way into so he could play it on repeat whenever he wanted to. “Why did you decline my call before? Too shy?”

Jonghyun grunted. The last few minutes had been such a whirlwind of emotion, he was still catching up. He barely even remembered how he got here in the first place now that he was in the presence of Taemin moreso than he had ever been before. “I got an email a minute ago, it said something about a job offer, I couldn’t read it before you called me.” 

“Go to your desktop and read it there!” Taemin urged, before explaining, “I don’t want to hang up yet. Also I’d rather hear you speak to me than have you type some cheesy-looking message about this or read the email myself.” 

“Yes, yes,” Jonghyun replied patiently, taking the short trip to his desk from the other side of the apartment. It was still turned on, so a simple wiggle of the mouse let him navigate back to his email. He leaned in closer to read it clearly, a note of baffled wonder entering his voice as he read, “‘ _ From: CM Entertainment KEY’ _ ?” 

“The same CM Entertainment KEY who you started making songs with my voicebank because of?” Taemin asked. Jonghyun furrowed his eyebrows and opened his mouth to ask how he knew that, but Taemin cut him off. “Jinki told me that, by the way. But it’s a little obvious he inspired you, you spent a whole day moping around after his comeback schedules for that song of his stopped.”

“I’m gonna open the email,” Jonghyun interrupted with a harsh click of his mouse. The email was short, only a few simple lines of text which he skimmed over before saying almost breathlessly, “oh, shit, okay.”

“Well?!” 

“He’s literally offering me a job,” Jonghyun said, baffled. “I don’t know why, or how he got my email, or how he even listened to my songs… but he wants me to work for him.”

“Does the email say anything else?” Taemin asked. “You should take the job, though, even if it doesn’t…” 

“Isn’t this suspicious?” Jonghyun countered. “What if he’s just someone pretending to be him?”

“Hmm,” Taemin hummed, an elongated sound that obviously sounded computerized. Jonghyun would have to remind him to work on the way his voice sounded, if he hadn’t figured it out himself already, which he definitely had. “Is there anything about meeting him written in there? Ask him to talk it over in person!” 

Jonghyun read closer. “I don’t need to ask. He wants me to come to an informal interview at some restaurant with a fancy French name tonight.”

Taemin laughed again. Jonghyun thought he wasn’t being that funny; maybe Taemin was just growing to love the feeling of laughing. “A fancy restaurant? I haven’t seen you wear anything even remotely past comfortable homewear yet.”

Jonghyun had already stood up, jittery and overcome with the sudden offer, when he caught what Taemin had said. “Wait,  _ see?  _ I don’t really send you selfies that often, Taemin…”

“Uhh, I may have been hacking your webcam whenever I felt like it?”

Swallowing the mortification and strange zing of enjoyment at the thought that Taemin may have seen him in any state of disarray or undress over the last few weeks, Jonghyun snorted and made his way to the stand-up wardrobe he had tucked away in an otherwise fairly unused corner of the studio. Its doors were permanently propped open, revealing the interior’s sorry state - Jonghyun didn’t own many clothes that weren’t hoodies or loose sweatpants, which overflowed at random due to the lack of organization. He rifled through the other, less visited parts of the wardrobe in a hurry, shoving aside leather jackets and the occasional button-up to reveal what he already had in mind for the interview. 

“If you can turn on my webcam, then do it and look at this,” Jonghyun said, turning back towards his desktop. He tucked his phone in between his shoulder and ear to hold the semi-formal black button-down jacket fully up against him. The gold buttons glinted off the afternoon sun now that he was facing the window; Jonghyun thought the effect of it would be nice if he were to eat somewhere so opulent, where they probably lit every part of the dining room floor with chandeliers. 

“Oh,” Taemin cooed in his ear, “looks nice. Your glasses match.”

Jonghyun quickly set down the jacket and held his phone away from his ear again - it was making his ears feel too hot, that was all. 

“You’re going to be late if you keep just standing around,” Taemin mentioned. “I read the email myself while you were busy over there.”

The implication to hang up was clear, but Jonghyun found his heart sinking at the idea of doing so, even though he should be excited to get to the restaurant. “Talk to you later?” He asked, hesitant and strangely shy. 

“I’ll be in your pocket the whole time,” Taemin sing-songed before hanging up. 

Jonghyun breathed in deeply and stared down at the screen of his phone, where the crude, dorky drawing Jinki had done of what he thought Taemin should look like was set as his contact photo. It was just an outdated computer with a :) face on it. He smiled a little. 

He was still reeling and more than a little nervous, but - he could do this. The interview was in just a couple hours. 

* * *

Jonghyun was definitely underdressed in his gold-buttoned but otherwise plain blazer and self-dyed brown hair. He cringed inwardly when he compared his outfit against KEY’s - the man was perfectly put together, down to the silk ascot and coiffed black hair. And KEY oozed the same casual charisma he did on television or while performing, smiling brightly enough to nearly draw Jonghyun in. He felt more than a little star-struck faced with the man’s perfectly proportioned face. 

The restaurant was just as fancy as he expected, but somehow, Jonghyun hadn’t envisioned the glamour of it well enough when he was in his own home. It was daunting to trip around the dining area looking for a waitress who could show him to his reservation. All the gold leaf and nauseatingly strong perfume the high-class patrons wore made him dizzy.

“Call me Kibum, I insist,” KEY said as soon as Jonghyun was comfortably seated across from him in the cozily lit private room, before Jonghyun could do more than get out his name. He didn’t seem to mind the difference in their dress codes, as he continued, “Quite a lovely outfit, you look very classy.” 

The interview was over before their meal ended, and it went smoothly, as it didn’t take Kibum that long to get Jonghyun opening up about his ambitions and hopes for the T1001101 project. To be fair, Jonghyun was at a point of enthusiasm and pride in Taemin that it made him want to open up to just about any interested party involved in the industry, but to discuss it with the person he was inspired to make the project by was a dream come true. 

Kibum seemed genuinely interested— connecting Taemin’s vocals, Jonghyun’s compositions, and his own ideas to the overall goal of CM Entertainment’s models, and Jonghyun easily agreed to the verbal contract Kibum offered.

“Couldn’t you just buy my compositions like other artists do?” Jonghyun was tempted to ask, still wary of his circumstance. Kibum’s blinding smile was more than a little dazzling to see up close as a long-time fan, and he felt like maybe it was impeding his good judgement.

“I’ll send you a document to sign in the mail in the next couple days, I just have to work out the details with the higher-ups,” Kibum said afterwards, a satisfied smile breaking on his face like a burst of sunbeams through an overcast sky.

“Are you sure everything will be… okay?” Jonghyun asked, worried. “I don’t want you to get in trouble for this.”

“It will be fine,” Kibum reassured, waving a hand dismissively. “I have my ways to convince him.” 

He eagerly gave Jonghyun his number and soon mailed the paperwork he had their company lawyers draw up, complete with a note attached, written in sharp, choppy handwriting: “ _ told you it will be okay! ;-) the moment i heard your music, i couldn’t get enough. thanks again. _ ” 

Regardless of the anxiety he still harbored after his short meeting with Kibum, he carefully read over and then signed the paperwork that would certify himself as an official employee of CM Entertainment, directly employed as a member of Kibum’s personal music production team. It seemed like a complicated set-up, one designed him to keep him under Kibum’s management instead of the CEO’s, but the salary paid a massive amount compared to the feast-or-famine style commissions he had been living off since he started out in this industry.

A job was a job, after all, Jonghyun thought as he flipped the employee keycard Kibum had mailed him over and over in his hands. 

“ _ Bring Taemin when you come see me at the office, I want to meet him! Also, come visit  _ immediately  _ after you get your employee badge.”  _ Kibum had demanded when Jonghyun and he had said his goodbyes at the restaurant. Jonghyun agreed to bring Taemin then, but now that he had to go in person, he felt more than a little apprehensive. What if Taemin wasn’t good enough for Kibum? What if he was  _ too  _ good and Kibum took Taemin and Jonghyun never saw him again? What if-

Jonghyun slid his keycard into the pocket of his jeans, sighing. He wished he could call Taemin right now. Though he really would’ve liked to hear the other’s voice again, Taemin claimed he and Jinki had a lot of work to do on the vocalization for casual speech and he wouldn’t be able to talk until they finished recalibrating it. Taemin’s voice comforted and soothed him in a way he couldn’t explain. Just thinking of it made him more self-assured, but a memory of Taemin reciting the script of Shrek The Third to help him fall asleep when his insomnia got bad wasn’t as good as Taemin encouraging him then and there would’ve been. At least he had this much, he thought as he tapped a message out to Taemin on his phone.

**Jonghyun:** i’m off to meet up with key  
  
**Jonghyun:** hopefully he hasn’t changed his mind abt this >< ;  
  
**Taeminnie:** he wouldnt.  
  
**Taeminnie:** have you told jinki? or can i?  
  
**Jonghyun:** why  
  
**Taeminnie:** i wanna brag about you finally entering the workforce.  
  
**Jonghyun:** but i wanna tell him!  
  
**Taeminnie:** ok too late.  
  
**Taeminnie:** but you can still tell him too.   
  


**Jinki-hyung:** hy u gt a job?   
  
**Jinki-hyung:** answr   
  
**Jinki-hyung:** f  
  


* * *

CM Entertainment’s building was massive, to say the least, with exposed steel beams and chrome finishing that made Jonghyun feel completely out of place in his casual outfit; he almost got the sense that he was too human to be there. The trip into the ritzy district had been long, eating up so much of his day that the late-afternoon sun was now gleaming straight into his eyes off the all-glass exterior of the building as he walked up. He was sweating through his light blazer. 

The keycard worked, though, so he entered the building and tried to look like he knew what he was doing. Maybe he did, and that thought sent a buzz of excitement up his spine. 

Kibum had said when they exchanged numbers that his office was on the thirteenth floor, but what he had failed to mention was that the only other office on that floor was the one belonging to the CEO, Choi Minho. The hallway split in two where the elevators opened, with one sign stating Mr. Choi’s office was to the left and Mr. KEY’s to the right. Jonghyun carefully peeked his head down the left corridor. A sole imposing black door sat at the very end, no secretary desk in front of it. A turn of his head revealed the same of the other corridor. Was coming up here  _ that  _ exclusive, that all visitors were on invite-only? 

Jonghyun cringed and strode down the hallway towards Kibum’s office, only for it to open as he reached for the handle. He startled back, but the person behind the door only raised his eyebrows at him. 

“Are you the new producer Kibum’s been trying to sell me on?” Choi Minho said. He looked slightly ruffled, hair out of place in a way Jonghyun had never seen when he’d caught glimpses of the man on television or in movies. 

“Ah!” Kibum called from within the room. “Jonghyun, you’re here early!” 

“Early?” Jonghyun asked, ears going red as he glanced between Minho, who looked at him rather judgingly with those intimidating big movie-star eyes, and Kibum, whose smile was Cheshire cat-esque. “I thought you said to show up as soon as possible.” 

“Well, yes, but as you can see,” Kibum said pointedly, “ _ something  _ came up. Or rather someone. This is the higher-up that I’ve had sign off on your contract, Jonghyun.” 

Oh, that explained a  _ lot,  _ now that Jonghyun was taking in Kibum’s equally frazzled appearance and the way Minho’s eyebrows furrowed at his words. 

Jonghyun didn’t know how to feel with the new information he’d just contextually received, but he was in no place to judge or even mind. He tucked away the information for later and bowed deeply in Minho’s direction. “Thank you sir, I look forward to working under you.” 

Minho’s lips curled up into an appreciative smile as Jonghyun straightened back up. “Kibum’s given me high hopes for your work, Jonghyun. Let’s talk again later.” And with those words, he nodded back at Kibum in dismissal and stepped past Jonghyun. He strode towards his end of the hallway, taking his imposing height and deep, smooth voice with him—leaving Jonghyun stranded alone in the hallway, suddenly feeling very small.

Jonghyun stepped into Kibum’s office suite and closed the door behind him with a sharp click. 

It was a large space, with contemporary furniture that screamed luxury and class. Kibum looked right at home among the muted reds and sharp angles, in his suit jacket and graphic tee, despite the outfit itself seeming a little dressed-down compared to Choi Minho’s full tuxedo suit. 

Kibum’s smile widened as he stood up to greet Jonghyun. “I think Minho likes you, Jonghyun.” 

“Oh, really?” Jonghyun mused. “I can’t tell. It seems like he likes you much more.” 

Kibum threw back his head and laughed, shooting him an even sharper teasing grin after he gathered himself. “Don’t get quippy yet, Jjong. You’re still very new here. Now come, sit.” He gestured at the fancy, perfectly inviting couch across from his cherry-wood desk. 

Jonghyun seated himself willingly, and was pleasantly surprised when Kibum sat next to him instead of across from him. 

“I forgot to tell Taemin about you meeting him,” he confessed almost immediately. And well - it wasn’t so much that he forgot as he hadn’t managed to slip it into the conversation. Between every weird thing Taemin wanted him to know and every responsibility Jonghyun had to thrust upon him, the idea that someone besides himself or Jinki was going to be heavily involved in Taemin’s life from then on had seemed daunting to try and bring up. Jonghyun admittedly felt apprehensive about it. What if Taemin ended up liking Kibum more than him? 

Kibum blinked a few times. “Does that mean he’s not here?” 

“Ah, no, he’s-” Jonghyun fumbled through his pockets, trying to fish out his phone. “He’s an artificial intelligence, and he doesn’t have any kind of… defined body right now, so it’s best to think of it like he’s just someone to text and call.” 

Understanding dawned on Kibum’s face as Jonghyun unlocked his phone and passed it to Kibum so he could scroll through his messages with Taemin. (Thankfully he had deleted the history beyond a few days ago - there was an embarrassing debate about the morality of Monogatari that Jonghyun didn’t need his idol to see him having.) 

“Can I type something to him now?” Kibum asked, fingers already poised over the keyboard. Jonghyun nodded, and suddenly Kibum’s attention was shifted away from him, entirely focused on the message he was tapping into the phone. 

“You should give him your number, too,” Jonghyun suggested. “It would be easy to talk in a group text about whatever ideas you have for us. Meeting like this, it feels like you’d have to say the same things too many times over...” 

Kibum hummed, reading whatever message Taemin had sent back to him through Jonghyun’s phone. He fired back quite a few before replying to Jonghyun, leaving a pause long enough that Jonghyun almost forgot what he had said to Kibum minutes before. “You’re right. Time is money in the music world. And we have a  _ lot  _ to talk about, Jjong.” 

Jonghyun wanted to ask what was up with the nickname, and where Kibum had come up with it all of a sudden, but Taemin was decidedly done talking to Kibum as far as he could tell, and the phone was passed back to Jonghyun. He tucked it back into his pocket, along with any ideas of reading their conversation until later. 

They were soon swept into an involved conversation about the written contract Minho had helped Kibum draw up. Fifteen percent of any sales Taemin made as a CM Entertainment artist would go to Jonghyun as his producer, and he would also be coming on as a part-time composer and given full responsibility for coordinating both of their schedules. It sounded overwhelming, to say the least, but Kibum waved away all his worries with a simple, “it’s easy to get used to.” 

**Jonghyun:** hey .  
  
**Taeminnie:** oh! jonghyunnie hyung.  
  
**Taeminnie:** how’d the meeting with key go? :)  
  
**Taeminnie:** also do you like my emoticon?  
  
**Taeminnie:** :) is a little outdated, but i’m studying up on emoticons. i want to start simple.   
  
**Jonghyun:** nice :-)  
  
**Jonghyun:** im not jonghyun tho .  
  
**Taeminnie:** what?  
  
**Taeminnie:** did he lose his phone somewhere again?  
  
**Unknown:** no he gave it to me .  
  
**Unknown:** im kibum , key i guess .  
  
**Taeminnie:** okay nice to meet you.   
  
**Taeminnie:** um… what’s up? :)  
  
**Kibum:** haha   
  
**Kibum:** just saying hi . want to give you my number .  
  
**Kibum:** we can talk more about your career . i have a lot of visions for you .  
  
**Kibum:** Contact Share: KEY  
  
**Taeminnie:**...thank you!  
  


**Jonghyun:** ahaahhahahahahwhjfhjwafjdsksjkdsfs  
  
**Taeminnie:** key?   
  
**Taeminnie:** is jonghyun ok? :(  
  
**Jonghyun:** whsdhy ddid iu sahy WHATS UP   
  
**Jonghyun:** skfksjkfehksjfsfsdj??!!?!?!?  
  
**Taeminnie:** oh hi jonghyun hyung…  
  
**Taeminnie:** what’s up?   
  
**Jonghyun:** ogfgh my godddddd  
  


* * *

_ Artistic Groove  _ had been a smash hit, CM Entertainment’s best debut by far. Tens of thousands of copies of the mini album were sold, all featuring original artwork and a mock-up photoshoot done with the 3D model the Art Division had done while considering the ideas Jinki, Jonghyun and Taemin had talked over about Taemin’s personal image. His cheeks were rounded and high, carefully framing his bright doe-like eyes, and the smooth and gentle slope of his eyebrows only accentuated the inherent childlike innocence in his face. It only worked to contrast the more mature and intelligent look in his eyes in every photo taken of him. 

Jonghyun felt like he’d stared at that facial model so many times since it was implemented, from making it his phone wallpaper to Taemin’s contact photo to now, only days after his promotional activities had ended. It wasn’t the face he had originally imagined for Taemin, but it fit him so well, he couldn’t help but let it grow on him. He could probably paint the slope of Taemin’s nose and his full lips in his sleep.

Taemin used the same 3D model to dance and sing on stage, projected like a hologram onto a mirror for music shows. And that same model was posed with Taemin’s intelligence shining behind its eyes for the Matrix-esque photo on the billboard outside Jonghyun’s window.

He sighed as he looked at it again. Taemin’s poised smile in it had changed since the day the billboard had been put up from a triumphant grin that Jonghyun shared in the joy of into a smug grimace that only made him jealous. It had been only a couple of months since they signed a joint contract, and yet so much had changed in his mind. Not to mention in his daily duties — Jonghyun often found himself doing much more managerial work than he imagined when he first started this, and his compositions frustratingly remained half-finished or scrapped while he coordinated Taemin’s rise to fame. 

It was hard to steer himself mentally back into a positive direction with  _ him  _ staring back at him whenever he looked out his window. Kibum had insisted they could work together soon and all success would be shared at a later date, but Jonghyun’s compositions hadn’t even been chosen for Taemin’s debut, and the producers had bossed him around too much regarding his vocal tuning. They couldn’t understand how to properly utilize Taemin’s unique sound, not like he could. 

Taemin really was a rising star, now. It was hard to come to terms with, especially at the pace everything was happening. Just a couple months ago, he had been Jonghyun’s solo project, a small program who sang two songs for a miniature subcommunity on the internet. 

Kibum had mentioned an idea for a concert in passing in the group chat he maintained with the two of them for business matters last week. Jonghyun kept thinking about it, whenever he thought of Taemin’s future - if Taemin was so popular already that people would come watch him—even with him being a literal hologram—perform on a stage, where did that leave Jonghyun? And how high would Taemin fly, with or without him? 

Jonghyun was committed to this, though. He wanted to be on Taemin’s side, to see every twist and turn his career would take through to end. It made his heart beat out of his chest with excitement and pride to consider that the Taemin he met and introduced to this in the first place could succeed, even when envy beat a strong tattoo inside his chest at the same time. 

It was the dead of summer, and Taemin’s blond hair and refreshing face looked beautiful against the heated blue of the early afternoon sky. 

His phone, sitting abandoned on the squat kitchen table of his apartment, suddenly rang with one of the fifteen looping custom ringtones Taemin had set for himself the last time he hijacked the device. This one was Ievan Polka, Jonghyun recognized. He  _ really  _ hated this one. 

It was a good thing that CM Entertainment hadn’t yet given him a high enough salary to afford a better apartment yet, because being able to step across his suite in five steps allowed him the blessing of not having to hear another second of an outdated anime meme song. “Taemin?” He greeted, lifting the phone to his ear.

“Hyung, this is a video call,” Taemin replied immediately, laughter in his voice, “but thank you for the close-up of your ear. Also did you know that your ear hair is definitely visible from here?”

Jonghyun yanked the phone away as he would if Taemin had licked his ear. Not that Taemin licking his ear would’ve been a bad thing. But anyways. His own face contorted in disgust and Taemin’s model smiled back up at him, cheeks full and eyes sparkling with mirth. He didn’t keep talking.

“Why’d you call me?” Jonghyun asked, seating himself at the table. 

“Just to say hi!” Taemin chirped, voice turning a tad too cheerful. “I can never get used to the idea that I can have a body just like you, even if mine is only digital.” 

“Uh-huh.” There was  _ definitely  _ something Taemin wanted, although the sentiment underneath was genuine — being himself always made Taemin feel vaguely amazed, and Jonghyun was there with him in that feeling. “You’re almost a real boy, Taeminnie!” 

Taemin laughed again, the fake-sounding ‘hahaha’ type of laugh that he enjoyed making the most. Jonghyun loved that laugh. “Maybe if I sing and dance for them a few more times, I’ll get a cool android body instead of having to operate a hologram on a mirror.” 

“I’ll start a fund for it and we can make it ourselves with Jinki,” Jonghyun replied, making an effort to keep the joking tone in his voice. It was only halfway a joke, though - if it would make Taemin happy, it wasn’t like he was using the majority of his salaries from CM for anything better. 

“Oh, speaking of the company,” Taemin continued, “I was told by Kibum that Minho wants to talk to you again.” 

“What’s so important that he has to use two different messengers instead of texting me himself,” Jonghyun muttered. He still felt that strange rush of  _ something  _ whenever Taemin mentioned having talked to Kibum by himself, a weird  _ something  _ that he never felt about Jinki or anyone else. He didn’t like it.

* * *

As it turned out, Minho didn’t need him for anything important. ‘Important’ in Jonghyun’s mind, now that Taemin’s first single’s promotions were finished, included one thing only: his compositions. By extension, Taemin’s involvement in those would be important, but all Minho wanted to ask was what Taemin and Jonghyun thought about their marketing taking a spotlight to his status as an artificial intelligence.

“I think he likes it?” Jonghyun asked, seated comfortably in the CM Entertainment lunch hall with Minho. They’d long since forgone any of the formalities involved with Minho’s position as they became closer through the work of managing Taemin’s whole life. “He really likes being who he is. But I haven’t asked him anything about this specifically.” 

“Please have him talk to Kibum or me about it later, okay?” Minho asked, taking a sip from his iced americano.

Jonghyun took a matching one from his milk tea to dispel the phantom bitterness of that kind of drink from his imagination. “Any other reason you have me out here on my day off, sir?” 

Jinki or Kibum would probably tell him he was being too snappy for a simple disposable employee, but as Taemin’s manager and technically his only connection to CM Entertainment, Jonghyun found himself in an unusually comfortable position. One he probably wouldn’t be in if it were any other company. He should thank Taemin again, today. Maybe Taemin would let him be cheesy without cringing at him, for once. 

As it was, this was neither Jinki nor Kibum — and Minho cracked a smile at him. “Is Jinki still up for watching the game on Friday?” 

_ That  _ was one thing Jonghyun could never get used to. Somehow, in the whirlwind of activity surrounding Taemin and his debut, Jinki had managed to become friends with Minho. He wasn’t there to see it, but eyewitness accounts—Kibum gossiping in his professional group chat with Taemin and Jonghyun—had told him they bonded over their slow-paced hobbies like golf and fishing during a late night of Minho-supervised shooting where Jonghyun had asked Jinki to come pick him up, too tired to walk home. Their newfound friendship was strange, but it made sense, in its own way. 

Jonghyun shrugged. “I think he’s gonna be busy. You’ll see if you show up and he’s already doing something else.” 

And busy Jinki was, come the end of the week. He had jumped on the idea of working on a full-scale android body for Taemin with Jonghyun once Jonghyun had proposed it to him. The two spent every free moment together at his spacious apartment, carefully blueprinting and engineering it. 

Jinki was engineering it, anyways. Jonghyun felt more like a rather incompetent assistant. He picked up the few bolts that Jinki asked for and fumbled them all. They skittered across the hardwood floor and disappeared under the tattered couch Jinki had shoved into this spare room a few summers back. “Uh. Sorry.” 

“It’s okay, I’ll just work on another part until I can go grab more of those to piece together the torso,” Jinki reassured. “The problem is things like the face, or articulation for dancing… They’re too sophisticated for a home project. What do you think, Jonghyun?” He pointed wildly at the preliminary blueprints he drew up of the body as he spoke, and Jonghyun frowned. 

“I think we probably should’ve talked this through for longer than two days,” he replied, feeling lost in the sea of metal slabs and small parts that they’d scattered across the floor. “Then we’d know what we’re supposed to be doing.” 

“You’ve only been talking about it to me for two days,” Jinki shot back. “When Taemin mentioned having no body more than a couple times, I started working on this, because I felt a little bad. I’ve been drawing these up for a couple months.” He flipped through the pages he’d stapled together until he got to the one for Taemin’s hands, holding it up so Jonghyun could see. The hands pictured were knobby, with fingers that widened at the tips like a frog’s. Somehow, they did seem perfectly Taemin. “Can you help find the parts for the structure these? They’re chrome, and around here somewhere.” 

“I’m not sure how—” 

The doorbell rang, followed by three sharp knocks, cutting off Jonghyun’s confusion entirely. All of his attention was redirected to the idea of salvation from this project, and he leaped up, calling, “I’ll get it!” 

Jonghyun opened the front door to see Minho standing there, football jersey on and smile in place. It slowly fell when he saw Jonghyun and the amount of still-wet oil and grease he had staining the old band tee he was wearing. 

“Good evening,” he greeted dutifully. “Come on in.”

“Are we still watching the game?” Minho asked, before he even said hello. “This one’s a pretty big deal.”

“I’ll let Jinki explain more, but probably not. We’re working on an actual body for Taemin,” Jonghyun replied. “We’ve been doing it for so long today. I don’t get how he can focus for so long on this...”

“Wait, are you serious?” Minho’s eyes lit up. “Oh my god, the things Kibum would have to say about this.” He followed close on Jonghyun’s heels through the apartment to the spare room Jinki was working in, and his smile only grew when he spotted the half-assembled body parts littering every surface. 

“Oh, hi, Minho.” Jinki didn’t look up as he said it, tongue poking out as he tried to connect a couple wires together. “Sorry about the game, I’m taping it for tomorrow if you want to sleep over or something.”

“I don’t care about that anymore,” Minho said with a wave of his hand. “Tell me more about what you’re doing here.”

“Ah, I’ve been working on it for a little while with Jonghyun. We’re going to surprise Taemin with this,” Jinki gestured at the blueprints. “Hopefully he likes it.”

“Where did you even get the parts for this?” Minho asked, amazed, as he picked up and toyed with the joints of a hand Jinki had cast off to the side. “I know modern technology is amazing, but I’ve never seen something like this for the music industry. This is so new, so… cool.”

“Didn’t know you liked robotics as much as soccer,” Jonghyun mumbled, settling himself back on the couch. Minho shot him a look as he squatted near Jinki, aiming for a closer look at the pieces scattered around him. 

“If it concerns my current rising star, of course I’m into it. Also, Kibum has been on about ways to manipulate Taemin’s image more, and this would totally work.”

“Are you into it enough to spare some funds or hire a few people to help me with it?” Jinki asked, sweeping his bangs away from his face. It left a grease mark all the way across his forehead. “I was just telling Jonghyun this, but this is too big and complicated to do in my apartment.”

Minho hummed, settling back on the heels of his feet and leaning against the wall. “I think so. We’ve gotten a lot of revenue from Taemin already, enough to cover an expense like this. Until I can get it sorted out, I don’t know, maybe I can help you out here.”

An excited grin broke on Jinki’s face. Jonghyun knew he was mirroring it as they met each other’s eyes across the room.

**Jonghyun:** hey so  
  
**Jonghyun:** what dya feel abt a body o.o  
  
**Jonghyun:** do u still want one?  
  
**Jonghyun:** it always seems like u do since u always mention it but   
  
**Taeminnie:** oh  
  
**Jonghyun:** o///o idk  
  
**Taeminnie:** i don’t feel like i need a robotic body…  
  
**Taeminnie:** i just mention it because… having one could be fun. :)  
  
**Taeminnie:** then i could mess with you in person! :))   
  
**Jonghyun:** well i hope tht makes all my hard work fr u worth it -.-;  
  
**Jonghyun:** u can hug me all u wish~  
  
**Taeminnie:** hmm.  
  
**Taeminnie:** i was thinking more like laughing at you when my body makes me taller than you! :))  
  
**Jonghyun:** incorporeal entities r not allowed to joke abt height  
  
**Jonghyun:** its international law  
  
**Jonghyun:** also i hateu  
  
**Taeminnie:** t: you love me!  
  


Jonghyun felt his face heat up reading the words. It was true, and yet. He somehow felt self-conscious of it. He liked Taemin as a person, and Taemin knew that. Nothing he would normally blush over. 

It was already late when the texts started, just him and Taemin talking about nothing until he finally breached the topic of a body with Taemin. Minho had gone home recently, leaving Jonghyun reclining on that same ratty couch and Jinki quietly working away on their project. 

Jinki looked up when Jonghyun set his phone down on his lap with a sigh. “Boy trouble?” 

Jonghyun scowled, averting his eyes. “No. What the hell?” 

“You used to get that same look on your face when I passed you notes in high school,” Jinki explained. “The lovesick puppy one.”

“I was just talking to Taemin,” Jonghyun mumbled. Right on time, his phone buzzed again, with Taemin’s text tone. He was the only person on Jonghyun’s phone to have a custom one, but that was mostly because Taemin had hacked him and set it himself. “I wouldn’t make a face like that over him.” 

He ignored the text. 

Jinki looked thoroughly unamused. His eyebrows were raised as he returned his gaze to the joint he was snapping into place on what would soon be Taemin’s right ankle. “You do almost every day, Jonghyun. And you let him press all your buttons, even the ones you hate to have pressed. I know what you’re like when you’re in love, and this is it.” 

“Love—Don’t you think that-that’s—a little strong, to say about Taemin,” Jonghyun spluttered, trying not to let his face heat up again. Just...  _ Love?  _ Taemin?! As a friend, definitely. 

But further than that… He couldn’t say. And more importantly, he shouldn’t. 

The topic was dropped almost immediately, as Jinki had to focus and it was getting late enough that Jonghyun had to go back home. But it stayed with him longer than anything they’d done that day, the idea that he could’ve unknowingly fallen in love with Taemin rattling around in his skull like a pinball in a machine. The scenery of his usual walk back home from Jinki’s apartment was lost on him, fading into unimportance more than he’d ever allowed. Walking gave him the time to really think without worrying about anything or anyone else, at least. 

It would be strange to be in love with someone like Taemin. For one, Taemin was born of his own brain. With half his own voice and half of Jinki’s, a face modeled after both of their own while keeping its own unique charm, and a personality Jinki calibrated and set loose to develop independently online, who was Taemin? An amalgam of Jinki, himself, and the impressions of various figures in his life? What would that make Jonghyun, to be in love with his own creation? A narcissist? 

He kicked a pebble and watched it clatter into a storm drain. It hit the bottom with a sharp sound. 

No, someone like Jonghyun couldn’t be narcissistic, he thought to himself. If he were, he couldn’t be jealous of how popular Taemin was starting to become. Or could he? 

Jonghyun squinted at the blurry neon billboards before him, at the dimly lit street signs which pointed in various directions. Dull realization hit as he noticed he’d forgotten his glasses at Jinki’s place.

He wished he’d forgotten his phone instead. 

* * *

**Kibum:** u might be thinking its too soon for a concert .   
  
**Kibum:** but taemin is a unique case . so im pushing for it .  
  
**Taeminnie:** do you think enough people will come?   
  
**Jonghyun:** i’ll fill every seat myself taemin ah uwuu   
  
**Kibum:** the thing is we want to showcase things like ur hologram performance , on-stage television presentation , etc .  
  
**Kibum:** even how u can be an android .  
  
**Kibum:** its all about how different u are and the diversity of performance u can bring that no one else can .  
  
**Kibum:** so ya i think people will come . :-) its very interesting .  
  
**Jonghyun:** ur right itll draw a unique audience for sure  
  
**Kibum:** i still have to finish planning everything . but im glad youve agreed makes it easier .  
  
**Jonghyun:** do u think his body will b done in time??  
  
**Jonghyun:** jinki told me theyr hittin a roadblock now tht others r involved :(  
  
**Kibum:** well they have to .  
  
**Kibum:** minho has funds for this . let him use them .   
  
**Kibum:** i have other things involving our lil android taemin in motion but we can work around this for those .   
  
**Taeminnie:** i’m on board for the concert… :)   
  
**Taeminnie:** i really want to perform like that without limitations.  
  


“Why are we doing this again?” Jonghyun asked again, frowning self-consciously as the stylists rubbed more body oil on his back muscles. 

“Because,” Kibum explained patiently, “you’re very hot, and if you want your career to take off like Taemin’s, I have to re-introduce you to the limelight through him. Kind of like a reverse of what you did to catch my attention.”

“No, I get that, but...” Jonghyun shivered. The amount of people running around the dark set, carrying cameras and equipment and who knew what else, created a chill that made him feel like it was freezing despite the relative warmth of the early evening. “Why this song?”

“ _ Internet War?  _ Well, it suits his image well, doesn’t it?” Kibum chuckled. “The artificial intelligence idol, the digital singer… It’ll promote his upcoming concert really nicely if it sparks interest. And the music video has to have him doing something  _ with you  _ in it, so we can introduce not only you, but his ‘real’ 3D body, too.”

“I’m sure they’ll all take a video of Taemin feeling up my abs really well,” Jonghyun grumbled, feeling a twinge of frustration. Taemin wouldn’t even be the one doing that, as the entire music video had to be shot with a stunt double in a green-screen suit. They’d be superimposing the digital model of Taemin in his place, creating what Jonghyun thought would likely edge on a strange uncanny valley effect. Kibum was banking on the hyperrealistic model looking fine next to Jonghyun’s human imperfections, but Jonghyun wasn’t so sure they’d work well together. 

Maybe if Minho and Jinki had hurried up enough for the body to be ready in time for the shooting, everything would look fine, but they both insisted that craftsmanship took time. The body that they’d present as Taemin for some portions of the mixed-presentation debut concert would be ready in time for the first night, but no sooner. 

Jonghyun seethed every time he thought of their pace, because he was also in charge of the concert rearrangements, and they had to be done long before the starting dates of the concert. 

The pieces were poised to fall into place for Taemin’s first concert, but Jonghyun felt like he was being pulled in a million directions trying to do his part of it. Being run ragged was the price he paid to get a good paycheck, and to be a part of the music industry beyond production, he figured -- maybe someday, he’d look back on the  _ Internet War  _ music video as a good memory and a great experience. 

For now, he just felt cold and wet and uncomfortable as the stunt double got in his face and lip-synced the lines that Taemin would be redubbing with him the studio later that afternoon. 

He really couldn’t stop going back to the idea of someone other than Taemin shooting this scene with him, while the finished product would show only Taemin and himself. Jonghyun tried to imagine what it might be like if it were Taemin in front of him. If Taemin’s knobbly fingers were running down his chest, pressing into his torso. Taemin would be rough, uncoordinated through his own choosing. If Jonghyun got to chain his own wrist and Taemin’s together with handcuffs instead. If they stood so close Jonghyun would be able to feel the energy radiating between them, to smell Taemin’s sweat and light cologne. 

Jonghyun felt his breath quicken into the next shoot, enjoying the rush of excitement the fantasy caused, as much as he felt self-conscious of it. If Taemin were that close to him, their eyes meeting, gazes heated and charged with any range of emotions as they glared each other down… If he could knot his fingers into Taemin’s hair, pulling harsh on it and bringing them ever closer… If he could be close enough to Taemin that they would exchange body heat where they were connected at their hips and if the sensation radiated outwards, hot and fast… 

“More of that, Jonghyun, you’re getting really into this!” Kibum called, monitoring the video footage as it was shot, squinting at the screen in concentration. 

Jonghyun gasped and gulped, fully yanked out of his daydreams and back into reality. The stunt double’s face was nothing like Taemin’s, and his eyes were too blank, less emotional than Taemin’s would be. There was no arousal, no tousled hair to pull on and no  _ Taemin. _

Blood rushed to his face and away from everywhere else, leaving him embarrassed. 

Kibum noticed the change in his demeanor, his moves sloppy and his acting falling flat as all the tension from earlier became turmoil. “Stop, stop!” He called, stomping onto the set. “Jonghyun, the long hours are getting to you, you’re not being consistent.” 

“Sorry,” was all he could choke out beneath the raging torrent of his thoughts. He really was too into Taemin now. The conversation he’d had with Jinki a mere month ago had never stopped haunting him, and Jonghyun had started over-examining all his interactions with Taemin as a result. He hadn’t been able to find anything in them to make him believe Jinki’s observations. Jinki was right, though—this was his proof. 

“Just go home,” Kibum said with a frown, at the tail end of a long spiel that Jonghyun hadn’t been listening to. “We’ll try this again tomorrow. I’m moving your recording with Taemin back, too, since we’re a little ahead of schedule.” 

“Huh?” Jonghyun blinked. He’d forgotten all about recording with Taemin in the short two-hour span he’d spent in front of the camera. It immediately loomed back over him. He wanted time and space to figure this out, not a forced encounter with Taemin. 

“Okay, yeah, you need this sleep, badly.” Kibum fished his phone out of his pocket. “No walking home today, Jjong, I’m calling you a ride.” 

He was pointed towards where his loose-fitting home clothes were still piled, and put them on in a confused state. The body oil and ink covering his whole torso made the black shirt stick to his skin uncomfortably. Jonghyun tried not to think about it or the circumstances surrounding it as he shuffled himself into the cab Kibum had called him, because if he did, he’d be thinking about Taemin like that again. 

Except he was in a moving vehicle, now, so Taemin would be sprawled out over the backseat, pressing his hands and his everything else up against him. 

Jonghyun shook his head to dispel the image before he could possibly take it any further. 

He didn't want to go home, back to where Taemin had gained the ability to plaster his new face on any screen and where he would have to talk to him and explain why their recording was cancelled. He couldn’t think about this there. 

Lurching forward in his seat a little, Jonghyun asked the cab driver, “Can I get you to drive me somewhere else?” 

The cab made a quick left, and soon Jonghyun was tumbling out of it and into Jinki’s high-rise apartment building. Luckily, he was a visitor there more days than not, so none of the lobby staff commented on his presence or frazzled appearance. They all probably thought he was Jinki’s boyfriend, and Jonghyun almost laughed at the idea. 

Jinki’s apartment door, an unassuming little red thing with a tweed welcome mat, was locked. Jonghyun banged on the door a few times, panic rising in his chest a little, before pulling out his phone.

**Jonghyun:** hey r u home  
  
**Jonghyun:** open th fcking door  
  
**Jonghyun:**!!!  
  
**Jonghyun:** jinki!!!!  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** jamong i hv a job  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** a nrml 1  
  
**Jonghyun:** ok so open up!! ><   
  
**Jinki-hyung:** im stl at work  
  
**Jonghyun:** its 8 pm i think u dont hav a normal job or ud be home!!!  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** y r u doing ths  
  
**Jonghyun:** i rlly hav to talk to u :(   
  
**Jonghyun:** its important…  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** tlk 2 me here  
  
**Jonghyun:** wat if  
  
**Jonghyun:**... nvm. jst get here  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** wht if wht  
  
**Jonghyun:** its abt taem ><;;;  
  
**Jonghyun:** idw him to hack us n see  
  
**Jinki-hyung:**?  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** he cnt do tht  
  
**Jonghyun:** he does it evry week????  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** hes not allowed to breach privacy for parties i coded him not to.  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** like u or me.  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** Part of his preventive code.  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** It was put at the very base of his program before he was programmed into himself as an intelligent being.  
  
**Jonghyun:** so he tricked me evry time he threatened it  
  
**Jonghyun:** for MONTHS???   
  
**Jinki-hyung:** lolol  
  
**Jonghyun:** shut up :/  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** so tll me?  
  
**Jonghyun:** i guess ><   
  
**Jonghyun:** rmb how u said i like taem?  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** ya u actd dense  
  
**Jonghyun:** :/ well i thought i didnt…  
  
**Jonghyun:** but today idk  
  
**Jonghyun:** smth happend n i was thinkin abt him  
  
**Jonghyun:** like  
  
**Jonghyun:** fantasizing  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** no details ?   
  
**Jinki-hyung:** dnt b shy   
  
**Jinki-hyung:** ik all ur fantasies   
  
**Jonghyun:** ew forget them  
  
**Jonghyun:** ok anyways i dont want to type it…  
  
**Jonghyun:** but ig i hav to acknowledg it :(   
  
**Jonghyun:** i guess im into taemin… and i like him…ugh  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** is tht a problm  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** u r fine to b friends w him is this v dif?   
  
**Jonghyun:** kinda…   
  
**Jonghyun:** how can i love a robot as a man?  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** imo hes mor man thn machine by now  
  
**Jonghyun:** but its more than tht :(  
  
**Jonghyun:** like since we both built him frm the ground up...  
  
**Jonghyun:** hes our creation? how can i be into him like tht...  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** hm idt of it lik tht  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** i programmed him bt hes sm1 in himself beyond me now  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** kinda lik som friend i had to meet n get to kno lik evry1 else  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** if u frame him as jst our proj, he gets a lil sad  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** he likes his humanity  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** … jong   
  
**Jonghyun:** sorry just thinkin…   
  
**Jonghyun:** ur right its been hard to separate this when im alone  
  
**Jonghyun:** but when im arnd him taemin is just himself   
  
**Jonghyun:** like any other psn  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** mb u shld tlk to him ab it  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** insted of standin outside my appt at 9pm  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** js   
  
**Jonghyun:** but he doesnt know me like u   
  
**Jonghyun:** idw hurt him  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** hell nvr kno u lik me til u opn up to him lik me  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** i can tel thrs mor 2 this 4 u   
  
**Jinki-hyung:** go hom & c him  
  
**Jinki-hyung:** ttyl k  
  
**Jonghyun:** … k ><   
  


Jonghyun frowned down at his phone, then up at the door he had sat across from at some point in the lengthy conversation. He could admit, it had probably been a little wrong to not separate Taemin’s origins and who he was as a person. Most of his personality, formed online or through independent learning, was uninfluenced by Jinki or Jonghyun. 

But Jinki was too perceptive, and he was right — there was more to this. Jonghyun wanted to  _ be  _ Taemin as much as he found himself wanting to kiss him. He wanted to be the most popular rising soloist in the pop music industry. He wanted to be making music and selling it to hundreds of thousands around the world. But it was Taemin who got to do those things, and if Jonghyun debuted as well, who was to say his career would ever be so explosive? 

There was so much work he had to do, too. Not only for himself and his own advancement, but for Taemin’s concerts. As much as he’d love to make everything stop so he could put his thoughts back in order and work everything out, he couldn’t. The world of music would rush on with or without him, and he wouldn’t have that. He couldn’t afford to. A place besides Taemin, as his friend and manager, would be better than no place at all. 

The shirt he was wearing still clung to him, the body oil having stuck it tight against his skin. He grimaced as he stood up, uncomfortable and stiff. Obviously, Jinki would be working too late for him to reasonably sit here any longer waiting for him. 

Jonghyun would just go home, take a shower, and get back to work. The rest would fall into place. It had to.

* * *

Jonghyun reclined back in his seat after pressing play on the new rearranged instrumental, monitoring Taemin’s reactions. They were in his apartment working on it, as Jonghyun didn’t really need a formal studio to record when his singer’s voice was computer-generated. And the sooner they were done rearranging nearly every song Taemin had released, the better, as the concert’s rehearsal dates were fast approaching. 

Since Taemin had gained a face, he’d bought enough computer monitors and extra screens of any size to cover an entire wall of his studio apartment. It was something like retail therapy, and seeing Taemin’s face bloom across each one as he plugged it in and routed it to his ever-growing system for the first time made him happy. The electrical bill was through the roof for him to keep most of them on throughout their time spent in his own home, but Jonghyun thought it was worth it. With so much space, Taemin could coordinate an effective image of almost his entire body, as he was doing now. It was so much like seeing a real person in his apartment beside him that sometimes, short on sleep as he was, Jonghyun would think Taemin was flesh and blood before him. 

His heart leapt into his throat whenever it happened, but the illusion wasn’t there today—it was too bright inside to hide the many borders between the screens and the few dark, switched off monitors. The curtains had been flung open by Kibum on his last visit. Jonghyun had been ordered to keep them that way, so he wouldn’t start looking ‘any more like a Twilight vampire,’ in Kibum’s words.

“I really like the adjustments you’ve made on this one,” Taemin said about the track, nodding his head in time to the beat. “It would sound even better if we had a live band playing it, but it’s your composition, it’s great any way it’s played.” 

Trying to keep his professional face on and not beam at the rare compliment from Taemin, Jonghyun clicked the next track, his voice turning a little shaky. “I’m almost done with this one. Minho wants me to write you a new song for the concert, so I’ve been working on this for the past couple weeks..” 

Eyes widening, Taemin turned his head towards Jonghyun. “In addition to  _ Internet War? _ ” His voice still twisted strangely and musically around questions. It was one part of his pronunciation Jonghyun hoped he never corrected. 

“Yeah, he wants to have a track you can switch into promoting and coming back with after the concert is over.” Jonghyun sighed. The work was fulfilling, but ultimately never-ending; as a result, this composition was less polished than he’d like it to be, exuding the raw energy of the idea. “I think it’ll be easier to do the final mix with your voice already on it.” 

He carefully pressed play when Taemin signalled for it with a wave of his hand. The smooth, lush instrumental Jonghyun had crafted filled the room. It usually swept him away and made him forget his surroundings in its all-consuming sound; but this time, Jonghyun felt too jittery and nervous to really enjoy it. Though he’d written tracks for and about Taemin many times in the last few months, this was the first that Taemin himself would hear besides  _ Already  _ and  _ Pretty Boy _ . (Jonghyun didn’t think those counted, anyhow - they were made before he really knew Taemin as more than a voice.) 

This track was one of the most sensual ones he’d ever written, poured out in a bout of sexual frustration after the night he’d shot  _ Internet War  _ with the stunt double. The writing had been therapeutic, and the guide he recorded for it when he was too tired to bring up Taemin’s vocal program or even turn on his computer was rough and full of sweeping emotion. With lyrics more suggestive than any song he’d ever written, he thought the message of it might be clear. It clearly spelled out the things he wanted to do to Taemin, the things he wanted Taemin to do for him. 

In spite of how obvious it should’ve seemed to him, he didn’t necessarily want Taemin to figure it out. There were still enough vague metaphors present in the song for it to be about anything, and—he hadn’t totally accepted the idea that he could view Taemin like that, despite the blatant evidence he was showing Taemin of the fact. Anxiety, full of hope and nerves in equal measure, buzzed in his gut. 

Taemin stood seemingly absorbed into the music, entirely unmoving save for a few slight motions of his hands or twitch of his lips. His expression seemed a little brighter when Jonghyun’s own voice crooned the chorus, but it might’ve been just his imagination. There was no facial expression coding in Taemin’s current model, after all. If there was, it was beyond the strength of Jonghyun’s old computer processing tower to show it. 

“Wow,” Taemin simply said as the final notes rang out. Only one word, and Jonghyun felt some of the tension leave his shoulders. Taemin looked back at him, fixing him with that intelligent, almost non-human stare. “This is my favorite one.” 

He had hoped Taemin wouldn’t read too much between the lines, but. There was something in his tone that made Jonghyun pause, something knowing and a little too heavy in emotion. He sucked in a silent breath and smiled back at Taemin. “Shall we get to making it yours, then?” 

Eager as he was, Taemin didn’t offer much in the way of commentary on the tuning of his own vocals for the song, simply standing there by Jonghyun. Sometimes his eyes would flick over and trail over him. Jonghyun would pretend he didn’t notice it, in spite of his neck growing hot under the attention. 

He hadn’t expected how much more intimate the song would become with the twist Taemin’s vocals and delivery would lend to it. Every redub of his voice to be Taemin’s made his throat drier, his hands heavier on the keyboard. The song was almost too sensual, this way. Taemin’s voice gave it the quality Jonghyun always thought a siren song might have; it was absolutely irresistible, impossible not to fall into the fantasy it constructed. Listening to it, he no longer felt as if it was weird to be attracted to Taemin. With a voice like that, inviting and sultry while still remaining light and crisp, who wouldn’t be? 

After they were finished polishing up a few of the lines, perfecting the stop-breaths and lilts, Taemin let his full body log off. Jonghyun was left with a multitude of dark screens and his increasingly dark living room as the world around him plunged into nighttime. 

After a few minutes without another message from Taemin beyond a quick ‘ _ thank you for today, jonghyun hyung, you always work hard, _ ’ Jonghyun felt antsy. The exchange felt awkward and stilted, to him. Had he scared Taemin, giving him that kind of message? Assuming Taemin picked up on it, that is. If he read between the lines of the song… Had Taemin decided he only wanted a professional relationship with him, no more friendship and certainly not anything past that friendship? But that was silly to think, so Jonghyun took a sip of his iced tea, trying to reground himself in reality and remember their schedules. 

This, he recalled, was one of the only nights they would both have free of schedules before the concert dates began. Of course Taemin would take it to rest and be by himself, trawling the internet or recovering in sleep mode, tucking himself away in a far corner of Jonghyun’s devices. Jonghyun really  _ was  _ just being silly, sometimes. 

Sighing through his nose, Jonghyun checked that Taemin wasn’t active, peeking into his computer’s task management screen. Taemin’s programs all ran off of Jonghyun’s computer, moved there after Jinki decided it would be more convenient. In a sense, Taemin was his roommate, only the room he rented out was Jonghyun’s processor. It seemed he was only resting after all, with his CPU usage dropping off considerably. 

For now, Jonghyun was alone. For once.

The thought that no one was around and no one would ever know did very little to assuage the guilt Jonghyun felt as he downloaded all of Taemin’s finished live arrangements onto his smartphone. Shamefaced, he tucked himself into his bed, shutting off all notifications before plugging in his earbuds. 

Jonghyun scrolled down the songs library on his phone. He turned the one they’d just finished,  _ Cocktail,  _ on repeat. 

* * *

Silencing all his notifications did not work in his favor. Jonghyun cracked his eyes open to the bright light of late morning, near blinding as it shone directly into his face. There was a voice talking - he couldn’t make out the words, half-asleep as he was, but it sounded vaguely synthetic. Taemin? 

He groaned and sat up, picking up the phone he’d left abandoned by his head on the pillow. Almost noon.  _ Cocktail  _ was still playing, tinny through his earbuds. His phone was only on 3%, and there was a flood of missed texts from Kibum. Shit. 

“Hyung!” Taemin’s voice called, again, from the desktop speakers. “I’ll check again in five minutes if you aren’t awake! Wake up!” He played a blaring alarm tone, then went silent. 

Jonghyun guiltily closed the music app, and the near-silent backtrack of Taemin’s vocals was cut off. He hoped Taemin never found out about this, but it was Taemin—he probably already had. 

Pushing his worry about that down, Jonghyun checked all the texts from Kibum. Kibum had the previous night off as well, and had invited Jonghyun out with himself and Minho for drinks, but Jonghyun didn’t feel like playing the third wheel. Especially not with all the extra work Kibum piled on him to prepare the concert. They were all supposed to be working early that morning, moving parts of the well-oiled machine running Taemin’s life, anyways - that was all Jonghyun really had time for, these days. 

**Kibum:** heeyyyyy  
  
**Kibum:** listen ik ur havin problmes .   
  
**Kibum:** with taemib  
  
**Kibum:** um not blind to it .  
  
**Kibum:** how u talk to him how u look at ur fone .  
  
**Kibum:** ok i have to say my advice m  
  
**Kibum:** i get it ok loke  
  
**Kibum:** u want to love a staer but u wnt u to b one .  
  
**Kibum:** well look at me   
  
**Kibum:** i wss tht way too right a long time ahgo .  
  
**Kibum:** 7u can have the best o f both worlds its posible jong   
  
**Kibum:** just b e professijbak ok no more boners in the workplace   
  
**Kibum:** sorry *prffesional … anyway  
  
**Kibum:** i dont care if im a hypocrite for saying that hhaha :-)  
  
**Kibum:**... ... ...good morning jjong its already 8:45 and therefore youre late .   
  
**Kibum:** please disregard all my messages from last night .   
  
**Kibum:** but keep them in mind too . get here or youre fired ! lol   
  


* * *

“Can I please talk to you?” Jonghyun prodded,  _ again _ , from where he stood slightly behind Minho. They were in the ultra-high-tech room that had been delegated to building Taemin’s android body, a project which Minho and Jinki co-headed. It had been expedited greatly, as Minho was so fired up for the idea of presenting it during the concert that he would spare no expense, be it in time or money. A few assistants had even been hired, running around with various tools and tiny components of each piece, but the work seemed to be mainly done by Minho or Jinki. Parts making up the larger body were no longer scattered at random, but instead, carefully hung against the brushed steel backsplashes of the wall in order to create the image of the partially-finished humanoid form. 

Minho turned to him, finally, eyebrows drawn and face stained in random places with dark streaks of oil. He was taller than Jonghyun by quite a few centimeters, and he had to look down at Jonghyun. Jonghyun didn’t like that. “I’m kind of busy, Jonghyun, the next stage of Taemin’s career is on the line with this.”

“What about  _ my  _ career?” Jonghyun snapped. He hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but he was so tired he was almost too dizzy to stand, and he was sick of the run-arounds from Kibum.  _ Do more work, help Taemin more, and then you can debut _ \- the never-ending laundry list of duties and prerequisites was leading him nowhere.

Surprise flashed through Minho’s eyes, snapping his eyebrows up from their previous furrowed position, and he set down the wrench he’d been holding. “What about it?”

“I’m sorry, I just need some kind of assurance that we’re going to head forwards with it soon,” Jonghyun explained, feeling a deep weariness creep into his tone. “Kibum hasn’t worked on anything about it with me. I’m just... a little lost.” He’d expected everything to be so much easier than this, when he first signed the contract with Kibum, and he trusted that Kibum was being honest, but enough was enough. 

Nodding, Minho crossed his arms. “I get it. It’s probably frustrating, working beneath the two of them and myself, being who we all are. I’ll talk to him about it.” 

“Do you have any suggestions or ideas of where we’re going to be with it after the concert?” Jonghyun prompted with a forceful politeness even though he wanted to try to remain civil after his previous outburst. He couldn’t let it go with a simple and vague answer like that anymore. 

Minho pursed his lips, obviously thinking. “I’m not doing much on the musical or scheduling side of things, anymore, because there are others for that. But... just prepare your best compositions and we’ll have a meeting as soon as we can to discuss a possible concept for you. We can market you on your songwriter reputation, probably.”

“You and me personally?” Jonghyun asked, just to make sure. When Minho gave his assent, he finally felt satisfied. A meeting one-on-one with the CEO to decide on his debut and set everything into motion was exactly what he needed. “I’ll be looking forward to it.”

“Oh, believe me,” Minho said, a smile turning up his small mouth, “I’m looking forward to it much more. I enjoy your songs a lot.”

Jonghyun hoped as he plastered a matching smile on his face that Minho would like his songs just as much when he had to consider if they would sell to an audience. It was disappointing that in the position he was currently in, he couldn’t get as close or friendly with Minho as he would like - the man seemed kind and competent. With nothing left to do in the bustling workshop, he simply thanked Minho and decided to go about his way. 

Just as he was heading out the door, he heard another voice calling his name. It was Jinki, from the far side of the workshop, tucked in the back corner where his detailed blueprints were tacked up against the wall. He wasn’t sure how Jinki had even noticed that he was there, as when he turned to look, Jinki was fully geared up for blowtorching, and had turned back to set the tool down safely. 

“I want to talk to you for a minute,” Jinki continued, not any louder than normal. His voice seemed to carry naturally over the space, and Jonghyun’s only course of action was to step closer. 

“Is it also about my career?” Jonghyun asked. “Because I feel like I’ve been thinking about talking about that for weeks. I could probably talk about it a lot right now.” 

Jinki snorted, leaning back against the workshop’s low table. “I figured. I overheard all that.”

“What do you think?” 

“Hmm,” Jinki looked him up and down, and then smiled, a small yet genuine quirk of his lips. “I think it’s just about time you get the career you deserve instead of being an errand boy. Though you’re great at that, too.”

“It looks great on my resume, I’m sure,” Jonghyun joked. “But really, what was it you wanted to talk about?”

The mirth left Jinki’s face like the sun dipping behind an overcast sky. With a more serious expression, he said, “About Taemin.”

“Uh,” Jonghyun laughed nervously, fear making his stomach swoop. Either this was about his crush again, or something was seriously wrong. “Did something happen with Taemin?”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Jinki reassured, waving his hands around to placate Jonghyun. “It’s not anything bad. I’m just worried about you two, is all. I never hear from you unless it’s about work and Taemin keeps confiding in me saying you’re acting a little off.”

“Like how?” Jonghyun hedged, feigning normalcy. He knew how awkward his conversations with Taemin had been lately, every joke being cut short before he finished it or every interaction being stilted to the point of formality. It was all he could do to hold back the crush he felt raging towards the surface. Taemin just acted so cute, Jonghyun could barely hold back telling him he thought that or that he would kiss the silly expressions off his face if Taemin’s wasn’t behind a screen. He sometimes thought he could kiss the screen anyways, if it would make Taemin laugh. 

“Just distant.” Jinki hoisted himself up fully onto the table, sitting with his ankles crossed as he stared Jonghyun down. “I think you should do something about that.”

With a frown, Jonghyun retorted, “That’s easier said than done. I have to be professional, at least until the concerts are over.”

“You’re more than just his manager,” Jinki reminded him. “You’re his friend before anything, and the one who he can be himself with the most. You two are the closest out of anyone Taemin knows. Don’t let him lose that.” 

“I won’t.” Jonghyun felt bad, now. He knew Taemin thought of him highly, but to the point of being closer to him than anyone… Jonghyun couldn’t afford to let that go because of his stupid feelings. He had to treasure it. 

“And what are you going to do about that crush of yours, hmm?” Jinki smirked. “Taemin told me you wrote him the most sexual song he’s ever heard.”

Jonghyun felt his face heat up, an increasingly common experience for him lately. “Don’t even bring that up.”

“I think you should talk to him about it, though,” Jinki pressed. “Be honest. He’s perceptive, you know, but he isn’t as confident as his antics make him seem. He has worries too.”

Jonghyun felt like he had a lot of his own worries, considering the complicated tangle of emotions he had to deal with every time he thought about Taemin in a romantic sense. But it wasn’t fair to Taemin to keep thinking selfishly like that. Talking to Jinki was a lot like talking to his parents, though, because Jinki knew him too well and would often point out things Jonghyun had never thought of. “Sure, I’ll get to it, Jinki.”

“ _ Thank _ you. And now I have to get back to my work,” Jinki stated, sliding off the tabletop and back onto his feet. “Twenty-four hours a day, we spend taking care of Taemin, huh?”

A laugh bubbled its way out of Jonghyun’s throat at that, almost without his permission. “It makes me wonder if making him is worth all of this lost sleep, sometimes,” he joked. Jinki only rolled his eyes at that one, waving him away and out of the workshop. 

It was with more confidence and security in his steps that Jonghyun was able to leave. He wasn’t sure if he’d talk to Taemin about his own feelings today, but at least he could bring him good news about his career path. His phone buzzed in his pocket as he stepped outside the building, and Jonghyun didn’t have to look at it to know it was Taemin bugging him again. Probably about work, since they hadn’t been able to talk about much else, or about his ideas for the songs Jonghyun was working on for him. Jonghyun decided he would answer that later, though - for now, he had compositions of his own to get to work on.

* * *

The dress rehearsal was going beautifully. Jonghyun couldn’t see very well from the sound booth, but he could tell from the nearby screens that Taemin looked amazing. His model was spruced up, given more expressions than ever before, a more detailed texturing, along with new outfits specifically designed for the concert. 

Jonghyun felt relieved that he’d talked with Minho a few days earlier. Though the stress involving the concert had been steadily rising , his newfound security in his own path to debut took so much off of him. It felt more like he’d been actually able to enjoy the process, and the rehearsal was just as fun - he’d never been this involved in the live music aspect of the industry, and he’d also never known how much he’d like it. 

About halfway through, the sound technicians decided it would be fine if Jonghyun left, as they could handle most of the problems on their own. He knew he’d annoyed them, acting like a curious puppy with too many questions about the production. It didn’t do anything to reduce his excitement as he raced out into the standing area. Empty as it was, it felt huge for a small debut-level venue. 

Mirrors, inky black in the dimness of the concert hall, were lined up along the back of the stage, hiding the sound equipment and the few live band members who were hired for the show. Taemin stood alone on the stage, model projected from above the sound booth. He waited patiently as the next VCR played, towering over Jonghyun from this angle. The slope of his nose and the curve of his jaw were even more beautiful from below. 

The costume he was currently wearing flickered and switched to the next, a sleek dark suit with cropped-off sleeves and tight-fitting pants. Jonghyun couldn’t help but bite his lip when he noticed the glittery eyeshadow and laced-up elbow-length glove he wore on a single hand. If there was a single outfit from this concert that oozed sex appeal, he knew it would be this one; nevermind that two more sections of the concert remained—nothing would ever be able to top this for him. 

Trying not to get lost in his own thoughts and fantasies, Jonghyun focused, or at least tried hard to focus,on the next segment. Taemin must’ve noticed him standing alone in the pit with his heart beating out of his chest, as he was staring at him for the entirety of the section. It was a group of songs that, although small, were all oozing sexuality.. It made Jonghyun’s face hot to hear Taemin belt out the suggestive lyrics and English endearments with his eyes locked on Jonghyun only.

_ Internet War  _ was among those songs, and the handcuffs Jonghyun clipped around the stunt double’s wrists during the music video shooting were dangling attached to Taemin’s wrist. His eyes burned into Jonghyun’s, intense and full of emotion that Jonghyun didn’t think could be possible, as he lifted the arm the handcuffs were attached to and held his hand out towards Jonghyun. 

With that simple gaze, he was left off-kilter and turned on to the point he could barely think, let alone focus on the remainder of the concert. The android body, fully finished and decked out in a dazzling sequined suit, was brought out for the final portion of the concert. It rose from the floor in a dramatic sequence, and the remaining chrome cast to the body only made it more resplendent and gorgeous in Jonghyun’s eyes. 

Distracted as he was, he could still admire the craftsmanship Jinki and Minho had put into the project - and Taemin brought it to life, gazing powerfully at the imaginary crowd through the LED eyes and dancing in a way that seemed entirely human, if Jonghyun hadn’t known better. He was near fluid, moves smooth and natural. Jonghyun cheered through the final section, falling fully into the role of Taemin’s fan, absorbed in the moment. 

“Everything good?” Kibum asked him when they met up after the rehearsal was finished and Taemin disconnected successfully from the projection and android. From the smirk he wore, Jonghyun could tell Kibum thought everything was perfect.

“It’s even better than I could’ve imagined,” he said honestly. “You did a great job coordinating, well—all of this.” 

Kibum laughed at that, visibly pleased. “It wasn’t just me. Give yourself some credit, Jjong! And you’ll be next.”

Jonghyun felt butterflies in his stomach at that - from nerves more than anything else. He hadn’t imagined standing on stage at a concert, or doing much besides releasing some music and singing at shows once in a while. Of course, he dreamed of it, but now that the dream was becoming a reality, it hit him how little he felt prepared. “You think I’ll get to  _ this  _ point?”

“And higher, Jjong. You both will,” Kibum reassured, gripping Jonghyun’s shoulder and squeezing it encouragingly. “I’ll be beside you every step of the way. Minho told me you needed more from me, and I’m sorry. I just got swept up in the excitement of Taemin - a little starstruck, I guess!”

After seeing the way Taemin looked singing on stage, and hearing the charm he gave to the vocals Jonghyun had programmed for him, Jonghyun could understand it entirely. “I’ll look forward to that, Kibum. Don’t let me down.” The last bit was said teasingly, though he truly hoped Kibum would give him the same care as he gave Taemin.

“I could never. You deserve the best, Jonghyun,” Kibum said. “Thank you for bringing Taemin to us. It’s late, though, so shall we wrap this up?”

Still dazed from the way Taemin was acting, Jonghyun felt thankful for the chance to escape the conversation. He nodded and tried to show all his gratitude towards Kibum in a quick hug, one that had been initiated by Kibum. “See you at the concert tomorrow.”

They parted ways soon after, and Jonghyun made his way into the calm, quiet night. Being so late in the summer, cicadas chirped loudly all evening, providing a fitting backtrack to his long walk home. 

He would’ve liked to spend it thinking, especially about Taemin and himself. Taemin and the way he stared Jonghyun down like he wanted to eat him. It was strange, with the way Taemin kept the distance Jonghyun set for him, and the way he hadn’t grinned with all his might at Jonghyun during the rehearsal like he usually would. He’d sent a small, private, closed-mouth smile to Jonghyun at the very end, after the team working on the rehearsal gave him feedback and he was about to disconnect from the projector. 

Jonghyun was worried by it. 

Seemingly summoned by his thoughts, his phone beeped with Taemin’s custom text notification. He hesitated for a single moment before pushing his hopes and anxieties aside to pull out his phone. The message preview made his blood run only a little colder. 

**Taeminnie:** we need to talk.  
  
**Jonghyun:** on the phone? o.o   
  
**Jonghyun:** u shld rest tho… its a lil late…  
  
**Taeminnie:** no, text is ok, hyung.  
  
**Taeminnie:** i just want to talk to you.   
  
**Jonghyun:** are u sure…? ur concert is tmrw  
  
**Jonghyun:** i dont want u to be tired out  
  
**Taeminnie:** i can’t wait for this any longer.  
  
**Taeminnie:** please?  
  
**Jonghyun:** sure...  
  
**Jonghyun:** what is it? o/o   
  
**Taeminnie:** jinki and you have been giving me lots to think about.  
  
**Taeminnie:** i want to know.   
  
**Taeminnie:** how do you feel about me?  
  
**Jonghyun:** umm i   
  
**Jonghyun:** ure mt friend taemin   
  
**Taeminnie:** am i not anything else to you hyung  
  
**Jonghyun:** what…   
  
**Jonghyun:**?? ><  
  
**Taeminnie:** do you see me as a man or a friend or a robot?   
  
**Jonghyun:** ure all of them  
  
**Jonghyun:** to me…   
  
**Jonghyun:** theyre all part of my img of u  
  
**Jonghyun:** i like all of it ><  
  
**Taeminnie:** it? you like me?   
  
**Jonghyun:** i mean   
  
**Jonghyun:** yes   
  
**Taeminnie:** how do you like me?  
  
**Jonghyun:** what??   
  
**Taeminnie:** in what way?  
  
**Jonghyun:** i would do anything for u  
  
**Taeminnie:** would you kiss me? if i wanted you to?  
  
**Jonghyun:** i   
  
**Taeminnie:** i would kiss you.  
  
**Taeminnie:** if i was a human  
  
**Taeminnie:** i would touch you  
  
**Taeminnie:** and not hold back anything.  
  
**Jonghyun:** oh my god  
  
**Taeminnie:** is that bad? did i say anything wrong?   
  
**Taeminnie:** im still learning about interaction.  
  
**Taeminnie:** i am experiencing so many new things now.  
  
**Taeminnie:** i hope i havent misread everything.  
  
**Jonghyun:** no its not bad  
  
**Jonghyun:** its good im just spechless   
  
**Taeminnie:** why?   
  
**Jonghyun:** i never imagined u wld say any of this to me  
  
**Jonghyun:** or that it wasnt one sided...  
  
**Taeminnie:** one sided?  
  
**Taeminnie:** do you feel the same way as me…?  
  
**Jonghyun:** more than that   
  
**Jonghyun:** i love you  
  
**Taeminnie:** oh.   
  
**Taeminnie:** jonghyun hyung…  
  
**Jonghyun:** if i make things uncomfortable to say that then im sorry taemin ah  
  
**Taeminnie:** you dont have to be.   
  
**Taeminnie:** that makes me happy.   
  
**Taeminnie:** i dont know what love means yet. but. i think learning to love you would make me happy.  
  
**Jonghyun:** will u let me help u find out  
  
**Taeminnie:** i want to if its with you.   
  
**Jonghyun:** after the concert  
  
**Jonghyun:** well have a lot of time  
  
**Taeminnie:** but your debut…   
  
**Jonghyun:** ill still hav time  
  
**Jonghyun:** always have time for u taeminnie  
  
**Taeminnie:**... <3 ?  
  
**Taeminnie:** right?  
  
**Jonghyun:** yes!!   
  
**Jonghyun:** <3  
  


* * *

“That was absolutely  _ perfect _ , Taemin,” Jonghyun exclaimed giddily into the phone receiver. He’d called Taemin as soon as the concert ended, while he was still filing out of the hall with the various fans and interested civilians. He’d insisted on a general audience ticket instead of a backstage pass, so he could be in the same pit he’d he stood alone in the day before. The experience was vastly different with a multitude of people crowding against him, vying for Taemin’s attention. All eyes had been fixed on him, perfection on the stage, an irresistible star. 

Taemin had shone amongst the lights, brighter than any one of them. “It was probably better than any concert I’ve ever been to,” Jonghyun continued eagerly, “but I don’t know if that’s just because I’m proud of helping with it.” 

“Thank you, hyung,” Taemin replied, voice quiet - Taemin’s way of vocalizing that he was shy or grateful. “What was your favorite part?”

“All of it,” Jonghyun didn’t even have to think to make that statement. The whole concert was well put-together, and the experience was bar none, in his opinion. “You enjoyed yourself, and that was what made it the best, actually.”

“Whenever I looked down in front of me, you were there,” Taemin confessed. “That made it easier to not be nervous. I’m glad you came.”

“Of course I came! Why wouldn’t I?” Jonghyun exclaimed, almost skipping across a completely empty intersection. The crowds had thinned out from the concert hall, as his home was in a rather unfrequented area of Seocheon. The atmosphere of the night felt wonderful, wind chills kissing his cheeks and grounding him, though the warmth in Taemin’s voice threatened to make him float away. “You’re important to me.”

“It was all because of you that I could even do this,” Taemin said. “Without you, I probably wouldn’t have become a person with a name, or a singer, or had so many people loving me.”

“You deserve all that.” Jonghyun looked up as he walked, up at the sky half-blocked by towering high-rises. The stars winked through at him anyways, the few resilient ones that could be seen in this level of light pollution. “And more.”

“We’re… we’re more, right?” Taemin asked after a long minute of silence. His voice sounded crackly at the end, some form of nerves slipping into the vocalization. It was cute, of course. 

“We’re anything you want us to be, Taeminnie,” Jonghyun said affectionately. “You already know how I feel.”

“I want to hear you say it anyways, though.” 

Jonghyun laughed. He was still looking up at the night sky, and the moon smiled back at him. He felt good. “I like you, Taemin-ah, more than I should be allowed to.”

“I’ll allow you to,” Taemin said, voice going quiet again. “Like me until you’re exhausted from it.”

With a smirk, Jonghyun teased, “I was going to do that even if you told me not to.”

“Are you almost home? I want to see you,” Taemin asked. Jonghyun hummed, and Taemin continued, “Maybe it’s easier to say things after the adrenaline of a concert. Will things always be this way between us?”

“We can make sure they are, we can work for that,” Jonghyun assured. He turned right, onto his own street, and headed into the stairwell of his squat apartment building. The lights were sparse and flickering, but it was enough to get by, enough to light his way. 

“While I still feel this open,” Taemin admitted, “I want to thank you again. Because you’re someone who makes me want to be me, hyung.”

“I’m happy... I have too.” There were just two flights of stairs up to his room, and they felt so long and so short at the same time. Jonghyun felt like he didn’t mind the complicated atmosphere of that moment. 

“I’m coming inside now, so I’m gonna hang up, Taeminnie.” It was said with a slight warning in his voice as Jonghyun carefully unlocked the front door of his studio. Taemin didn’t answer, simply hanging up the call. 

When Jonghyun opened the door, the apartment was already fully lit by the number of monitors Taemin had turned on. He pressed the door shut behind him, setting his keys on the kitchen counter as silently as he could manage. He’d never felt so excited to sneak into his own apartment, but the effort was for nothing - Taemin spotted him immediately, face breaking into a huge, sunny smile. 

Jonghyun couldn’t help but smile back, just as wide.


End file.
